Los Angeles, Calif.– Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, hosted by the Ascent Media Group – owned post house Rushes, London, has announced the Official Selections for its 11th Year. United States filmmakers will be represented by two films, two broadcast designs and a music video.
The festival, which serves as a bridge between the commercial production industry and the independent film community, has steadily gained recognition as a premiere platform for the short film genre and has increasingly taken on an international character. This year’s group of 140 Official Selections was drawn from more than 1000 entries representing some 112 countries. The festival will be held July 22-31 in London.
Charlie Thistle directed by Bragi Schut (Gallantyne Pictures) and Familiar Faces directed by Frank Madone (LCC) have been shortlisted in the festival’s International category. Broadcast Design finalists include Victor Newman’s Fusion Fall, directed by Freestyle Collective’s Victor Newman and Avatar (Coca-Cola) directed by Smith & Foulkes of Nexus. Competing in the Music Video category is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs video Zero directed by HSI’s Barney Clay. Two American’s will also be among this year’s festival judges, film critics Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle and Ty Burr of the Boston Globe.
The 18 countries represented this year also include Peru, France, Mexico, China, Spain, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Iceland, Australia, Slovenia, Israel, Ireland, Canada, Luxembourg and the UK.

This year will see all competition screenings (except the Broadcast Design category) held at The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), with tickets on sale from the end of June. The Broadcast Design Category screenings will be for free at Curzon Soho.

The full list of films screening in competition, along with the directors, production companies that made the work and the festival promo can now be seen at www.sohoshorts.com. Full festival screening and event details will be available online from 22nd June 2009.