Welcome to MergingArts Productions

MergingArts Productions produces cultural events and radio programming related to music and visual arts, reaching out to communities both locally and globally.

Short Short Story Film Festival

The Short Short Story Film Festival is a competitive international festival of films that tell a story in under six minutes.

The 17th edition of the festival celebrated brevity in film-making in a brand new way, running from Saturday, 23rd November through Sunday, 8th December.

For 2024, the festival was a unique closed event, with film makers across the globe participating in both exhibiting and reviewing films.

The festival consisted of two programs, Heartstrings and Headtrip, each with a distinctive tone yet wide-ranging styles and topics, and including both live-action and animated films.

Congratulations To Our Award Winners!

For the Heartsrings program, the winner was Colourful White, an animated documentary about the life experiences of people with vitiligo, created by Jiahao Li, with Yuwei Jiang and Jan Zhou.

For the Headtrip program, the winner was La Próxima Vez (The Next Time), directed by Julián Lona, a portrayal of a son's attempts to establish better communication with his mother over Sunday lunch.

New Awards Process for 2024

Each program of the festival, Heartstrings and Headtrip, has an award.

The films were reviewed by the participating filmmakers themselves as something new this year, who voted for their favorite films created by their peers.

There was also an acclaimed, international jury panel of participants continuing our tradition from our Spoiler Alert Radio film program, who reviewed and selected their favorites.

Click here to see a list of jury members.

The jury and filmmaker votes were combined to determined winners, who will receive commissioned custom art objects created by past festival participants. Scroll down to see some of last year's awards.

Festival Films

In total, we accepted eighteen films, from more than a dozen countries, all of which were US premieres or World premieres. These were culled from several hundred submissions from more than forty countries.

Click here to see a list of festival films.

More On The Festival

To learn more about the festival concept and history, click here.

For requirements to submit to future editions, click here.

There is no fee to submit your film to the festival.

Music Charting

World Music

Toni (aka DJ Madame B) is a global music genre director showcasing sounds from around the world. She hosts Pacifica affiliate syndicated and regional world music shows.

She submits MergingArts Global Radio weekly charts to NACC (North American College & Community Chart) and RMR (Roots Music Report).

She is an active panelist of international charting organizations, TWMC (Transglobal World Music Chart), BWMC (Balkan World Music Chart), and RWMC (Russian World Music Chart), representing MergingArts.

Click here to view weekly and monthly world music charts and adds.

Radio Syndication

World Music

Donne del Mondo showcases global music by women, celebrating musical women of the world. Available Saturday afternoons, it is distributed via the Pacifica Radio Network on select affiliates throughout North America.

Transworld Airwaves features a cross-cultural musical journey united in voices and rhythms. As well as syndicating on Pacifica, it broadcasts every other Sunday evening from 7:00 to 8:00 pm (US Eastern time) on WZBC 90.3 FM from Boston College in Newton/Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

You can hear more international sounds every Sunday from 8:00 am to 11:00 am Eastern, by tuning in to World Wide Waves, with rotating hosts. It can be heard on 90.3 FM WRIU, non-commercial radio broadcasting from the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI.

Spoiler Alert Radio

Featuring conversations on the craft of filmmaking, Spoiler Alert Radio continues to syndicate weekly on selected Pacifica affiliates.

You can find out more about the show, including syndication information, by clicking here, or visit our podcast and archive page by clicking here.

Women ... Animation ... Womanimation!

Womanimation! is the premier showcase in the US of international women’s animation, a special one-day film festival event presenting animated short film stories created by women around the world.

Womanimation! 2024

The fourteenth edition of Womanimation! took place at
Best Video Film & Cultural Center in Hamden, Connecticut, USA, on Saturday 29th June.

Thanks to all our enthusiastic audiences, everyone at Best Video Film & Cultural Center, and of course our participating filmmakers for making the festival a great success!

Special thanks to Mariana Masetto for her gracious contribution of a unique musical performance just for the festival. Click here to view her performance.

You can read more details on this year's festival here, or click here for a detailed listing of the films.

Awards

The Audience Award winner for 2024 was Becarias (Interns), directed by Marina Donderis, Núria Poveda, Marina Cortón, from Spain. The film also came in second in our Jury voting.

Speaking of which, for the second time this year, we assembled a special jury consisting of eleven women musicians who have topped one of the MergingArts Global Radio weekly charts.

The jury reviewed and rated the films, with the consensus winner being Les oiseaux (The Birds), from Christel Hortz from Belgium.

Click here to see the list of our jury members, hailing from Europe, Asia, and South America.

Honorable mentions went to Chicken from German animator Anna Benner, and Felina from Spanish animator María Lorenzo, both of which did well in audience and jury voting.

Award winners received custom awards created by previous award winners, Fernanda Caicedo (Ecuador/Germany) and Olga Titova (Russia).

Check out the awards pics on the left or right side of the page.