Short Shorts Film Festival 2000
Japanese premiere of yet another Academy Award® winning film.
The American Short Shorts Film Festival featured 48 films in five programs at the 2000 event, including the Academy Award® winning documentary "The Personals" directed by Japanese filmmaker, Keiko Ibi.
Special program commemorating the beginning of the 21st Century
The festival introduced international program in 2000 with a special selection of films from Australia, Europe and Asia. And to commemorate 100 years of filmmaking, the festival selected "Vintage Shorts" from the early 1900's such as Thomas Edison's silent film "The Great Train Robbery". Other notable vintage shorts featured a young Judy Garland and Charlie Chaplin.
2000 Famous Filmmaker
New York independent film icon, Martin Scorsese came on board in our second festival as our featured filmmaker, showcasing his early works, which were filmed in his favorite town, New York City.
National Tour
In 2000, the festival established its now famous national tour with American Short Shorts events in Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya, Okinawa and Osaka. Invited filmmakers from the U.S. joined the festival in Tokyo and Sapporo, and participated in panel discussions about short filmmaking and the significance of the medium. The tour was highly successful, drawing crowds of over 25,000.
Volunteer Program and International Media Coverage
Festival volunteers and visiting filmmakers from the U.S. swept up cigarette butts, gum wrappers, and whatever other refuse that they could find on the sidewalks of the boulevard Omotesando in Harajuku, the fashionably trendy district of Tokyo which hosts the festival. This unique event, which came to be known as "Sweepers," attracted national coverage in Japan in both print and electronic media.
Meanwhile, U.S. networks CNN, E! Entertainment Television, and CBS all covered the American Short Shorts with feature stories about the filmmakers and the event.