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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 19th edition of the festival returns to celebrate brevity in film-making in a brand new way, starting Monday, 23rd November through Sunday, 6th December.

For 2026, festival will again be a unique closed event, with film makers across the globe participating in both exhibiting and reviewing films.

The festival consists 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.

Submissions

We are now accepting submissions!

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

Touch here for details on submission requirements and process.

The 2026 submission deadline is 1st November.

New for the Festival

Each program of the festival, Heartstrings and Headtrip, has an award. Repeating the new process from last year, this year the films will be reviewed by the participating filmmakers themselves, who vote for their favorites (filmmakers can not vote for their own film) to continue having the filmmakers be part of the festival itself.

There is also an acclaimed, international jury panel of participants continuing our tradition from our Spoiler Alert Radio film program, who will review and select their favorites.

Winners receive commissioned custom art objects created by past festival participants.

You can see last year's awards in the right column.

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, on our Spoiler Alert Radio page, or visit our podcast and archive page here.

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)and RWMC (Russian World Music Chart), representing MergingArts.

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

Women ... Animation ... Womanimation!

Womanimation! is a competitive global film festival showcasing acclaimed animated film stories by women from around the world.

Womanimation! 2026

On Saturday April 25^th, the fifteenth edition of Womanimation! came to Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.

Awards

The Audience Award winner for 2026 is Signal, directed by Emma Carré and Mathilde Parquet, from France. The film also came in third in our jury voting.

A special jury consisted of women musicians who have topped one of the MergingArts Global Radio weekly charts.

The jury reviewed and rated the films, with the winning film being Rock Song, from UK-based Polish animator Jadwiga Ligęza.

Touch here to see the list of our jury members.

An honorable mention goes to La Bicyclette et le vélo (Cycle or Bicycle) from Roxane Campoy, which finished second in both audience and jury voting.

Continuing our festival tradition, this year's award winners received custom awards created by award winners from last year.

You can view these unique creations here in the right column and on our social media.

Festival Film Selections

Touch here for details on this year's films.

From hundreds of quality submissions from dozens of countries, we selected ten final films, from eight nations on three continents.

With running times between three and seventeen minutes, and styles ranging from 2D to stop-motion to 3D to multi-media, the films emphasized well-developed narratives as well as visual daring.

From a variety of female perspectives, films explored both personal themes of family bonds, love and loss, to broader ideas on our relationship with nature, the environment, and the cosmos.

Find out more on this year's festival here.