Winners of the 2024 Anacostia Shorts Film Festival
May 2024
For Immediate Release:
Valley Place Arts Collaborative, a producing and presenting non-profit project in support of Ward 7 and Ward 8 artists and creative projects, is pleased to announce the winners of the first Anacostia Shorts Film Festival.
In partnership with Open Road Arts Film Festival and Lisa Hodsoll, and with the major support of ARCH Development, Valley Place Arts Collaborative hosted “Anacostia Shorts,” a special category and contest for Anacostia filmmakers and/or stories rooted in this historic DC community.
There was a three-day event to honor the filmmakers where the top 10 entrants were screened live on May 4 and 5, 2024, and via YouTube on May 6, 2024, when the honorable mentions were also screened. The live events took place at Historic Anacostia’s Honfleur Gallery.
The top three winners of the Anacostia Shorts Festival, which carried cash prizes, were:
First Place, Prize $2000
An Ordinary Guy
David J. Stern
As an independent filmmaker, he wrote, directed, produced, and edited over a dozen short films and documentaries. David has taught film production to high school students at Imagination Stage, to college students at George Washington University. At Imagination Stage, David is currently the Director of Digital Media where he not only developed the film curriculum, but also produces, directs, and edits video content from promos to specialty projects. David attended New York University's film program.
Synopsis: When Guy dies of a heart attack, death’s escort shows up to take him to the after-life. But the tables turn as they both realize that their lives have been meaningless and inconsequential. Both find an unexpected path to redemption.
Second Place, Prize $1,000
Interception: Jayne Kennedy • American Sportscaster
Safiyah Songhai
A Howard University graduate, Safiya Songhai is an African-American film director, screenwriter, editor and producer. She trained with highly acclaimed Sankofa director Haile Gerima, playwright Ntozake Shange author of'For Colored Girls, and Legendary director and Oscar-winner, Spike Lee. Her film Ladylike is one of the first film credits of the late Chadwick Boseman Black Panther.
Songhai is also a college professor, television broadcast journalist, voice-over artist and former CNN commentator.
Synopsis: When a bronze-skin bombshell rocks the world of Sunday Morning Football, millions tune in... but few know the tumultuous story of Jayne Kennedy, the first Black woman to boldly tackle the racial lines of American sportscasting.
Third Place, Prize $500
My Brother is Deaf
Peter Hoffman Kimball
Peter Hoffman Kimball is an award-winning screenwriter and director and, as the father of a deaf child, an advocate for d/Deaf representation. His 2023 film Millstone won Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival and has gone on to play at many major film festivals and has qualified for Academy Award consideration. His many films have screened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and such prominent film festivals as Slamdance, Festival REGARD, Cleveland, and Show Me Shorts (NZ). A graduate of Brown University, he is currently based in Washington, DC.
Synopsis: A short documentary about a boy whose family learns that his younger brother is deaf. They try their best to learn what it means to be deaf and how best to get to know him.
Winner of the Audience Favorite Award
Audience Favorite
Unsilencing Their Voices
Jayla E. Felder
Jayla E. Felder is a native of Maryland, and a recent graduate of The New School, where she received her BFA. During her schooling and community service she was introduced to Voices for a Second Chance (VSC), one of the oldest non-profit agencies in Washington, DC that provides vital services to returning citizens and justice-involved individuals and where she now works full-time. She serves as the Program Manager and has been granted the opportunity to help develop new programming, marketing and development materials, as well as initiatives for client services. She also works to help raise community- based awareness about the mission of VSC. She has a dual passion for theater and social services and her dedication to both fields inspired her to merge the two and, develop this documentary film short.
The producers:
Lisa Hodsoll Co-Producer
Lisa Hodsoll started An Open Road Film Festival, now in its third year and in a continued partnership with The Valley Place Arts Collaborative. She is an actress (among other endeavors) who most recently appeared in The Care Project with Voices Festival Productions and Sonnets for an Old Century with Spooky Action Theatre. Other theater credits include – NEW YORK: Laura Bush Killed A Guy (The Klunch) - D.C. run, Helen Hayes nomination for Best Lead Actress. LOCAL: The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Theater Alliance) Helen Hayes Nomination Best Supporting Actress, Edgar and Annabelle (Studio Theatre), and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide ... (Theater J) OTHER: A Fool’s Paradise(Valiant Flea) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Medea’s Got Some Issues in Chicago (Chicago Theater Sweatshop) and D.C. (No Rules Theatre) And in TV/FILM: recent appearance on Chicago Med and will soon be seen in Apple TV + production of Lady in the Lake.
She is the founder of the not for profit arts organization Open Road https://theopenroadarts.com/ and is currently working on the post production edit for the film Flight of the Crows.
For more information, visit https://lisamhodsoll.com/
Adele Robey, Co-Producer
A resident of Historic Anacostia, Adele is a founder of Theater Alliance which was formed when she was on the board at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. In 2001 she and her late husband bought a property at 1365 H Street NE, Washington, DC, turning it into a small independent black box theater. This theater, The H Street Playhouse, proved to be one of the catalysts for the explosive growth that continues to happen on this corridor. She has been always intimately involved in local economic development, first as a member of the H Street Merchants Association and then as a board member of the H Street Main Street
organization. She has also been a member of CHAMPS, Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and is a recipient of the Capitol Hill Community Achievement Award. She has also served on the board of the Anacostia Business Improvement District and St. Coletta School.
In 2012 she founded a non-profit, The DC Theater Arts Collaborative whose major project is the Anacostia Playhouse which opened its doors in August 2013. The Anacostia Playhouse has served as a neighborhood hub for the performing arts drawing participants and audience from both sides of the Anacostia River. As such it played an integral role in the economic revitalization of Historic Anacostia and Ward 8. In recognition of the founding of the Playhouse, she and her daughter were awarded the Washington Post Innovative Leadership Award as part of the Helen Hayes Awards. Her role at the Playhouse came to a close in January 2022 and she now concentrates on Valley Place Arts Collaborative, Inc., as a founding artist and board member, creating arts programs and opportunities for East of the River artists and the community at large.
As a freelance graphic artist, (and part time actor) she co-founded the successful Voice of the Hill newspaper and served in the Capitol Hill public schools, fashioning after school programs. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she is the recipient of that school’s Alumni Award of Merit.
For more information, please contact: Adele Robey valleyplacearts@gmail.com
