2010 Bend Film Festival

Dalton O’Dell

When his incarcerated father is transferred to a distant prison, fourteen year-old Jeremy must face life alone with his game-show addicted mother and two violent, older half-brothers. Hindered by his disparaging family in the bleakest trailer park west of Texas, Jeremy scours heaven and Earth for the love and the light that he so desperately craves.

Dustin Grella

Prayers for Peace is a narrative stop-motion animation confronting the memory of the animator’s younger brother killed in the current conflict in Iraq. Drawn entirely with pastels on a slate chalkboard, the materials used to create the animation become a metaphor for the impermanence of life.

Ross Whitaker, Aideen O’Sullivan

An amusing poignant documentary about fate of the Irish phone box, which has gone from the centre of society to the verge of extinction.

Atsuko Okatsuka

“Littlerock” is a powerfully intimate drama that captures the fears and desires of a young Japanese woman lost in America.

Adam Reid

Lonely since his wife left him and alienated from his daughter, a cantankerous voice-over artist strikes up an unlikely friendship with his regular deliveryman. Many suburbs away, an elderly widow loses her license to drive and turns to her wry younger neighbor for nostalgic cuddles and comfort. Meanwhile, a young urban sports fanatic meets a girl online and unexpectedly falls in love, though the trials the couple endure prove even more unexpected. Adam Reid’s enchanting, compassionate debut weaves together the worlds of six lonely individuals as they negotiate the age-old process of giving and receiving love. It isn’t easy, and it never happens the way they expect it, but for these isolated souls, there’s an oddball magic in the way they make connections they never imagined.