The West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival

After a 3-year long hiatus, the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival returns to the screen for a two-day event on April 22 & 23, 2022. We’re looking for unique, boundary-pushing works in video, animation, and film. Send us your newest work!

Whether you’re an emerging fine artist, student filmmaker, or a seasoned pro, the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival invites your creative and progressively minded entries in video, film, and animation. We screen short narrative films and experimental artworks alike, and welcome all genres: drama, comedy, sci/fi, documentary, video art, experimental animation, 2D/3D narrative animation, low budget… We celebrate the bold, the funny, the authentic, and the imaginative. We look for quality in form and depth in content and ideas. Above all, we value unique and independent perspectives. As a short film festival seeking a broad range of expressions, entries should be 15 minutes or less. The deadline for entries is March 25, 2022.

Established in 2010, the WVMSFF is a creation of the Electronic Media program of the West Virginia University School of Art and Design. The primary mission of the festival is to celebrate, recognize and help to cultivate quality, innovation, and independence in the cinematic arts, and to expose West Virginia University students and the surrounding Morgantown community to the world of independent filmmaking, video, and animation. The festival also strives to focus attention on topical issues in contemporary culture and to draw attention to the rich and unique heritage of West Virginia and the surrounding Appalachian region.

2022 Screening Committee & Jury

Thomas Javier Castillo

Thomas Javier Castillo (he/him) is a Pocho filmmaker, media artist, and wannabe DJ and Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film and Bowling Green State University. His short films and videos explore identity, sadness, and memory with visual tropes of melodrama, masks, alter-egos, and the human figure within human-altered landscapes. His current work as DRENONEX explores the narrative and critical potential of the intersection of small-gauge filmmaking with iteration, audio and video synthesis, loops, graffiti, beat-making and Instagram. He is actively seeking the perfect part-time job, preferably in the gourmet sorbet industry. Website: https://thomasjcastillo.com/projects

Pella Felton

Pella Felton (She/They) is a media, performance, scholar, specializing in podcasts and digital media. She is a 4th year PhD student in the department of Theater and Film at Bowling Green State University and holds a Masters of Arts in Television Radio and Film from Syracuse University.  Pella’s research on sound and podcasting performances has been featured at the Great Lakes Association of Sound Scholars, The Mid American Theatre Conference, and the Pacific Ancient & Modern Language Association. Pella loves nature, podcasts, and skirts with pockets.

Courtney Geiger

Courtney Geiger is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and fine art photographer hailing from Lexington, South Carolina. Working mostly in film and fine art photography, her work frequently explores issues surrounding internet culture, gender, race and identity. Her notable narrative works include a short film she wrote entitled "Out of the Blue" which won the Creative Mind Group "Best Picture" Prize at Cannes International Film Festival in 2017 and a twenty-four episode web-series entitled "First Year" which she wrote, directed, and produced. "Clout", Courtney’s most recent work, is her first feature-length film.

Gerald Habarth

Gerald Habarth is currently an Associate Professor of Art at West Virginia University where he heads the Electronic Media area in School of Art and Design, teaching experimental animation and video. He holds an MFA degree from the University of South Florida and a BFA degree from Parsons School of Design. He is the founder of the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival and the program “Space: Atacama” an adventure art course that takes students to the northern desert region of Chile to create works that focus on the perception, experience and multi-media art. Habarth’s animations are amalgamations of personal memories fused with reflections on individual psychology, perception, contemporary culture and historical events. They have screened at numerous national and international venues and festivals including the Tampa Museum of Art, the Huntington Museum of Art, Festival Les Instants Vidéo, and Stuttgart Filmwinter, the Festival for Expanded Media.

Steve Lipton

Steve is a dynamic and results-oriented professional with decades of award-winning creative editing experience. As a long-form Senior Editor for National Geographic, he has contributed to hundreds of hours of original programming, including documentaries on subjects as varied as Amelia Earhart, the geopolitical dynamics of North Korea, and the mating rituals of the Olive Ridley Sea Turtle in Costa Rica. Additionally, he has helped produce thousands of spots and long form pieces for clients like Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, PBS and Chiat\Day.

Steve's practical postproduction expertise include Adobe Premiere, After Effects animation, Photoshop, supervising mixes, color correction, directing voice over sessions, overseeing original scores, and supervising additional editors. He has been credited as a Producer and served as the VO talent for multiple programs during his time at National Geographic. He thrives in a challenging environment where he can use his creativity, experience, and dedication to maximize his impact on each project. Examples of his work can be seen in the National Geographic series "Inside North Korea".

Michael C. Schwab 

His animation journey started back in 1973 at the Kansas City Art Institute producing the “Channel 19 Auction Spot” as a senior and winning first prize Public Service TV Spot at the Long Island Intl Film Festival, 1975. From there he was hired at The Animators, a Pittsburgh, PA  based animation studio, and contributed as an animation stand operator and asst. animator, 1977-1979. He moved on to co-found Kensington Falls Animation as a producer, director, animator, and production artist, 1979-present. The studio produced many successful commercials and scoreboard animations with the help of many talented artists and continues with Mike as a solo producer. Past notable works include: “Meet Your Liver”, Internet Web Series, (Feb 2021); “The Cowbell Shuffle”, Animated Short, (Sept 2020); “The Childless Woman’s Guide to Raising Children”, Internet Web Series, (Feb 2020); “Tom’s Life”, Animation Pilot, Network Cartoon Series for the FOX Network, (Feb 2011); Pittsburgh Pirates Scoreboard 2D Animation (1985-2011), Awarded Golden Matrix Award (1991); “Timmy’s Journey to Understanding MS”, AIP Production Team Project, Awarded Community Service Project  by the PA  Association of Private School Administrators, (2005); “Lou and Costa’s Burglar Welcome Mat”, debuted on MTV Cartoon Sushi (June 2000), appeared at the Sundance Film Festival (Jan 2001), and Nicktoons Cartoon Festival (Nov 2004); Pittsburgh Penguins TV Commercials, (1984-1995), Telly Award for Best Animation(1988-1989). www.kensingtonfalls.com, Youtube Channels; Kensington Falls Animation, Mikey Moose Schwab, and Killer Moose Entertainment. 

He became an educator in 1975 and taught Animation Basics at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers, (1995-2017), and a variety of Traditional and Digital Courses in the Media Arts and Animation Department at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, (1996-2019). He added a Master of Arts Degree to his resume, (2004-2009), at Antioch McGregor University in Visual/ Performing Arts.

Kerry Skarbakka

Kerry Skarbakka is an artist working at the intersection of studio arts, performance and constructed photography. The core of his practice examines the complexities of existence, control and the vulnerabilities of the human condition through performative physical acts and expanded roles of identity. Skarbakka’s performance-based photographic work depicting acts of falling, drowning and fighting have been exhibited in galleries, museums and art fairs internationally. Highlights include the Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles; the Haifa Museum of Art, Israel; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the North Carolina Museum of Art and Fargfabriken Norr, Stockholm. A Creative Capital Awardee, he has received funding from the Oregon Arts Commission, The Ford Family Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Chicago Center of Cultural Affairs. He was also awarded a commission from the City of Seattle through the 1% for the Arts Program. Skarbakka’s work has been featured in notable publications including Aperture, Art and America, After Image and ArtReview International. Extensive online media coverage includes The Huffington Post, Wired, Slate, The Guardian and many others. Additionally, Skarbakka has appeared on several live radio and television interviews including NBC’s “Today Show”. Skarbakka received his BA in Studio Arts from the University of Washington and an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago. He is an Associate Professor of Photography at Oregon State University.

Kadin Tooley

Kadin Tooley, a West-Virginia native, has been working in both filmmaking and media-first marketing for 6 years. An alumni from Marshall University, the bulk of Tooley’s videography has been self-directed in both freelance commercial and narrative filmmaking. Collaborating with some of West Virginia’s top marketing agencies, he has worked creatively with the likes of West Virginia Lottery, Bridge Day, GoMart, and West Virginia Tourism. Additionally, he has photographed or produced multiple award-winning short films, music videos, as well as two feature films, including Exodus 23:20, Deadline (ShortsTV, Hulu), Wake Up Dorothy, Normal for Now(Amazon Prime).