Shorts and Stouts Film Festival award winners.
Ed Shin
The Shorts and Stouts Film Festival, formerly Point Lookout Film Festival, returned following a two-year hiatus, and change in both venue and town, its seventh overall season at its new home at Bright Eye Beer Co. on 50 W Park Avenue in Long Beach.
Started in 2018 by organizers of several short film festivals in the New York and New Jersey area, who are also filmmakers themselves, the Shorts and Stouts film festival thrives on being an outlet for filmmakers from the greater Long Island area, as well as surrounding areas, to show the fruits of their laborers.
Organizers of the Shorts and Stouts Film Festival: Steve Rogers, CJ Cullen and Larry RosenEd Shin
The festival organizers view the unique venues that the fest had called home as the perfect vehicle to give filmmakers networking opportunities, as they would be mingling with other filmmakers in a welcoming setting. Quite often at festivals, run by the same organizers, and at similar dining hospitality venues, new relationships between fellow attending filmmakers have been forged. And those relationships have led to projects that would eventually be shown in later seasons of the same festival.
John Marean and Debra MarkowitzEd Shin
Annual awards at the festival include Best Local Short, Best Ensemble, uniquely titled certificate awards, and even awards for student films, in addition to the usual awards you would see at most festivals.
For more information on the festival, including past films screened, award winners, interview clips with filmmakers from various seasons, and more, visit shortsandstoutfilmfestival.weebly.com or email pointlookoutfilmfestival@gmail.com, as well as like and follow the festival’s pages on Facebook and Instagram.
Essence Sommers interviewing filmmaker Dan Gregory
Doug Gallo, Hannah Gallo and Christine Gallo
CJ Cullen, Debra Markowitz who won Best Short short for her film ‘One Last Time’
Filmakers Q&A