This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

This post is from MonkeyDribble Films, about their film “Mum”:

MonkeyDribble Films is made up of two brothers. We are James and Christopher Norton, originally from South Africa, but are now based in Portsmouth, England. We are passionate filmmakers wanting to produce high quality films for people to enjoy:) We started out producing music videos for local bands and over the last year turned our hands to producing short films. ‘Mum’ is the fourth film we have produced.

The idea behind MUM was initially to do something to bridge the gap between projects. We had just finished shooting a Sci-Fi short which had a lot of Post, so we wanted something small to keep us busy. We came up with the concept and wrote the script in a few days and then booked the actors for the next sunday. The two actors and us all got up really early, and filmed it all in one day. We did some rewriting of the script on set and did write a whole new scene that day that we felt was needed. Mum for us was a great piece that showed us what we can achieve with no budget, a small team and not a lot of time. We hope you enjoy!

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Thursday, May 9 at 7:00pm in The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!

This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

This post is from Jordan Schopick, about his film “This is Chiang Mai”:

I’m 17 years old and a student at Portsmouth High School. I started making films in 8th grade and have continued on in high school with all the media classes my schedule could take with also making films on my own. In January, I took a trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand to visit my brother for 2 and a half weeks. With Thailand being such an amazing place, we wanted to document all the cool places we went and things we saw. We rode around the city and the mountains filming out of tuk tuks and songthaews (taxis) and playing with tigers and monkeys.

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Thursday, May 9 at 7:00pm in The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!

This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

This post is from Pam Severns, about her film “Ben & Eric Go Drinking”:

Ben and Eric Go Drinking is the result of a project deadline, a camera, a puppet, and a man who was willing to act on the spot. It started what became a comedy web series starring Eric Mearns and his puppet roommate, Ben Green, and their adventures together as a man and puppet duo. More Ben & Eric episodes have since been made which have screened at puppet slams and comedy shows in Boston and Los Angeles. Ben & Eric have also performed live on both coasts.

Pam Severns is based in Boston, and is the creator of Ben & Eric, a puppeteer, and a filmmaker. Much of her work involves puppetry, but she is currently directing a puppet-less comedy short with the Rhode Island Film Collaborative. Eric Mearns reached his comedy peak when he exposed his buttocks to both the Goodyear Blimp and Air Force One in the same day. He writes, acts, and performs in comedy videos and live shows in Boston.

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Thursday, May 9 at 7:00pm in The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!

This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

This post is from Amy Kaczur, about her film “Requiem for Black Gold”:

A little background on me:

I picked up video and Super 8 film after many years of painting. Painting just wasn’t enough. Video gave the lens to a traveler’s raw discovery and the pleasures of inquisitive searching. I love a good adventure and a great story. My passion in art is directed toward subjects of social and political conflict, debate and change – the subjects that we are not supposed to talk about at the dinner table, but are crucial to being openly discussed. Currently, my video and art work is grounded in environmental concerns, community, land use, and a formative love of the aesthetics of experimental landscape cinema, language and social space.

I grew up outside the Cleveland area in the Rust Belt. My working class family roots had a huge impact on how I saw and appreciated landscape, both urban and rural. They worked in food, healthcare, education, auto industry, manufacturing and worked the land, feed, mills and livestock in rural Southern Ohio down to the edges of Appalachia. I moved to Boston to go to college and lived in Cambridge, Long Beach and now Los Angeles. Graduate of Tufts University and University of California, Irvine.

A little background on the video:

While in graduate school, and I had a strange attraction to the refineries in the Long Beach port area. They became a beacon. A friend and I went on a few night rides to see the glittering lights of the port and refineries. Oddly they reminded me of home and provided a comfort that can only be explained as nostalgia.

The video really began in 2001 when I first saw a sunset from Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park. The sunset was candy-colored, spectacular, brilliant. Dense smog rolled out from the Los Angeles basin through the pass between St. Jacinto and San Bernardino Mountains, past Palm Springs and all the way to the Salton Sea. The smog was a key ingredient to the beauty we witnessed. I was struck by this conflict and wanted to explore the conflict between beauty and danger, and the balance of vulnerability and industriousness. Requiem for Black Gold is a visual poem of complex nostalgia for an industrial age fueled by petroleum, a call for hope for newly discovered energy sources, and for things not always being what they appear to be. Someday, even a plastic bottle will be obsolete

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Thursday, May 9 at 7:00pm in The Press Room in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!

This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

Our final film is “Coming of Age.” It was written and directed by John Herman and submitted by cinematographer Dan Deering, who had this to tell us about the film:

The story of a man reflecting on his life around a river. This movie was produced in association with the 48 Hour Film Project, which invites filmmakers from around the world to produce a complete short movie in just two days. Winner of the Best Film, Best Director, and Audience Choice Awards.

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Sunday, February 24 at 7:30pm in 3S Artspace’s Store Gallery in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!

This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

Justina Maji’s “Sweet Dreams” has the distinction of being the very first film submitted to PSFN, just hours after the call for submissions went live. If that wasn’t enough to require her inclusion already, her film is an unexpected, funny, and very sweet rendition of a music video. Justina’s story just adds to the experience of watching it:

He’s usually a great listener, but my husband misheard the lyrics to Beyonce’s “Sweet Dreams.” I was reluctant to share this film publicly, as I made it as a love letter to my husband who was spending his birthday alone working on a contract in Virginia. I knew he was homesick, and we had been apart for months. I got really crafty one weekend and decided that I had to make a music video. All of the characters from our apartment in Portsmouth (including the rain pouring in through the windowsills) are included as a reminder of when we were here together. I expected him to be the only one to ever see it, but he was impressed and it began to get around among my friends on social media. I hope you enjoy watching it!

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and have been living in Portsmouth for about a decade. I am the Conference Center Director for Star Island, which is the most beautiful place in the world, and surprisingly just 7 miles off the coast of Rye. I have almost no experience with film-making, but I often engage in random creative activities. Even my dog is more technologically advanced than me. At least that’s what her twitter account would suggest (@ladytherealdog).

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Sunday, February 24 at 7:30pm in 3S Artspace’s Store Gallery in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!

This is part of a series of posts from the filmmakers previewing the different films that will be screened at Portsmouth Short Film Night.

Andrew Gibson’s “Maine” is short and sweet, with a punchline that anyone up and down the northeast can appreciate, even if they’re not a Mainer. Andrew writes:

I studied communication arts at the University of New Hampshire, where I began making music videos and short films. Eventually a few friends and I started making comedy shorts under the NEWD FILMS moniker. To this day, most of our work is focused in the comedy genre, and we are currently working on developing several web series, sketches, and hopefully a feature in the future.

The short film “Maine” was filmed in late December after we got a huge snowstorm. We were bored and stuck at our friends house when we came up with the idea. We had ventured out of the house a few different times that weekend, and each time we arrived at a new destination (liquor store, friends house, bar, liquor store etc.), we would bang our bean boots to shake off the snow before we entered. After awhile it became a practical joke, and we would obnoxiously stomp around and cause as much of a scene as we could. By weekends end, we decided to make a film about it. Having no crew, or budget, or brain cells to write a script or any dialogue nonsense, we decided to keep things simple. The whole thing was shot and edited in just over an hour. Enjoy!

Come to Portsmouth Short Film Night on Sunday, February 24 at 7:30pm in 3S Artspace’s Store Gallery in Portsmouth, NH to see this and the other great short films being screened!