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.

Women ... Animation ... Womanimation!

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

Saturday, April 5th, a special MassArt Encore Edition of the festival took place at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

DJ Madame B wove soundscapes from women around the world at the special screening, and audience voted for their favorite three films to determine the winner.

Co-sponsored by the MassArt Animation Department, this educational screening was free and open to the public.

Audience Voting

The screening was enthusiastically received by an audience of both MassArt community and broader Boston animation aficionados.

The winner was Becarias (Interns) , directed by Marina Donderis, Núria Poveda, Marina Cortón, from Spain. The film also won the audience award in the original festival screening in Hamden, CT.

Runners-up were Nuits blanches (Sleepless Nights) from French animator Janis Aussel, and Chicken from Berlin-based Anna Benner.

Thanks to Steve, Alice, Dylan, and everyone at MassArt for making the event a success!

Festival Films

The festival screened fourteen films from twelve countries on four continents, with styles from stop-motion to 3D to traditional 2D and computer/2D hybrids.

With running times between two and twelve minutes, the films combine well-developed narratives with visual experimentation, exploring themes including gender roles, culture clashes, family bonds, and the fragility of life.

Touch here for a list of the films.

Womanimation! News

Womanimation! is scheduled to return to MassArt in April 2026.

This will be the main festival itself, not an Encore presentation.

More details will be posted in early 2026, at which time we will accept start accepting submissions. Please do not submit films before then.

Touch here to find out more on previous versions of 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), and RWMC (Russian World Music Chart), representing MergingArts.

Touch 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 touching here, or visit our podcast and archive page by touching here.

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.

Touch here to see a list of jury members.

The jury and filmmaker votes were combined to determined winners, who received commissioned custom art objects created by past festival participants. Check out the awards pics on the right side of the page.

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.

Touch here to see a list of festival films.

More On The Festival

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

For requirements to submit to future editions, touch here.

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