Preview: Ohio Shorts 2022

Transcript

[Electronic music with a solo female singer plays quietly in the background through the video]

Reg Zehner: Hi, my name is Reg Zehner. I go by they/them pronouns, and I am a writer/curator/DJ based in Columbus, Ohio. And I am this year’s 2022 Ohio Shorts curator. And this year I’m really excited to showcase the program of this year’s Ohio Shorts. The films in this year’s selection are so good. They’re really complex and fun and I had a great time watching and learning about all the different types of filmmakers in Ohio.

I just want to say to all the filmmakers that submitted and were also accepted that I really loved the films. I had a great time watching them, and also the amount of talent people have is amazing. And the craft of storytelling is really what I tried to focus on in the program, and the amount of types of stories that exist just in Ohio is just so important, especially in something like Ohio Shorts. I hope you enjoy the films.

Image description

2022 Ohio Shorts juror Reg Zehner, a young Black woman with orange curly hair pulled back into a ponytail and bangs, wears a loose black T-shirt with an orange tie-dyed henley underneath, light brown pants and white sneakers. They sit in a folding chair on a stage with a screen behind them and the blue, ticket-shaped logo for the Wexner Center for the Arts program Ohio Shorts projected on it. As they talk about their work as juror for the 2022 Ohio Shorts program, their image gives way to a segment of short clips from the selected films:

• A young Black man with longer natural hair, wearing a red cape and a yellow shirt made up to look like the top of a superhero costume, runs down a narrow winding stairway surrounded by moss-covered stone walls. He stops at the bottom of the stairway, pauses, and looks to either side of him.
• A young white woman, shot in black and white, wears a high-necked black cape and a tight-fitting cap with pointy ears. She stares at the camera with wide eyes and a creepy smile that reveals vampire fangs.
• A young white woman with pulled-back blonde hair is seen in a black tank top, white-trimmed black cardigan, and bright red lipstick against a plain wall and a large mini blind-covered window. She holds a notepad and flings a wadded piece of paper to the floor. The image cuts to her loafer-clad feet walking through a layer of wadded paper that practically covers the floor.
• A preschool-aged child wearing a light blue hat, dark blue hoodie and beige pants is seen from behind, walking through the woods. Colorful animated brushstrokes wrap around the figure and both sides of the frame it inhabits is decorated with a warm, peachy background color and simple trees painted in watercolor.
• A white boy of about middle school age, barefoot and wearing khaki shorts, a bright blue T-shirt with a plaid button-up over it, a dark blue cape and homemade crown, is seen in profile thrusting a toy sword forward into the air. The scene behind him changes to marked up grid paper, and the boy moves in stop-motion animation across two pages before striking down a video game character with his sword.
• A Black woman sits under a dome hairdryer in a tree-filled outdoor setting with a curtain of silver streamers gently moving in the wind behind her.
• Computer animation of a gekko in a tree-lined area jumps in slow motion.
• The young Black man seen previously in superhero gear sits in a car with a young Black woman. He has his left arm around her and pulls her close to kiss her forehead.

Zehner reappears near the end of the video, which closes with a graphic featuring the Ohio Shorts logo on a field of light blue, with information about how to see the shorts program and the URL for more information: wexarts.org/ohioshorts.