Among the record 1,634 films submitted to the 2014 Heartland Film Festival, five of the 134 programmed titles have been nominated for Academy Awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences across four categories.
- The Dam Keeper, directed by Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo
2014 Heartland Film Festival Official Selection, Narrative Short
Nominated in the Animated Short Subject category - Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me, directed by James Keach
2014 Heartland Film Festival Official Selection, Documentary Feature
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” nominated in the Music, Original Song category - Our Curse (Nasza Klątwa), directed by Tomasz Śliwiński
2014 Heartland Film Festival Award Winner, Documentary Short
Nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category - The Phone Call, directed by Mat Kirkby
2014 Heartland Film Festival Official Selection, Narrative Short
Nominated in the Live Action Short Subject category - White Earth, directed by J. Christian Jensen
2014 Heartland Film Festival Award Winner, Documentary Short
Nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category
“It’s incredibly exciting to have several of our selected short films nominated by the Academy,” said Heartland Film’s Artistic Director Tim Irwin. “Narrowing down over 1,000 short film submissions in 2014 was an exceedingly difficult task, and seeing several of our favorites now vie for the industry’s top awards is very gratifying. We wish the best of luck to all of our nominees.”
The nominations mark a record number of Heartland Film Festival selections nominated for Academy Awards® within a single year. The previous record was in 2013 when three short films were nominated and Inocente, directed by Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine, took home the Oscar® for Documentary Short Subject.
Since 2011, the Heartland Film Festival has been granted the special designation of being a qualifying festival for the Annual Academy Awards® within the Short Films category. This means that the winner of the Grand Prize for Best Narrative Short Film will qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.
The 2014 Heartland Film Festival took place Oct. 16-25, 2014 in Indianapolis. The 2015 Heartland Film Festival will open its Call for Entries period beginning Feb. 2, 2015 and will be held Oct. 16-25, 2015.
