Static BloomGolden Reel
Golden Reel
Static Bloom
Elena Ruiz · USA
CineManiacs is a four-day celebration of the short form in Austin — the weird, the tender, the unclassifiable. Five editions in, still run by people who love shorts a little too much.
Short film is the most alive it has ever been and the easiest to ignore — one more thumbnail in an endless feed. CineManiacs exists to pull a few dozen of the best out of that feed and put them where they belong: on a big screen, in a dark room, in front of a packed Austin crowd that actually came to watch.
No feature envy, no filler. Just shorts, programmed with obsessive care into themed blocks, followed by the kind of conversation you can only have in person. If you make short films, this is a room worth traveling for.
Every selected film competes. Category winners take a trophy and cash — and one film each year is named best in show.
Our grand jury prize, awarded to the single best short of the festival across every category.
The strongest piece of short fiction in the selection.
Non-fiction and hybrid work that stuck with the jury.
Animation in any technique — hand-drawn to pixel.
The work that bends, breaks, or reinvents the form.
The best short from a currently enrolled filmmaker.
A snapshot of the 4th edition — the films that owned the room.
Austin has always taken film seriously without taking itself too seriously — a city of independent theaters, obsessive programmers, and audiences who'll line up for a block of shorts by directors they've never heard of. It's the perfect temperature for what we do.
For four days each October, we take over an East Austin venue and turn it into the loudest, warmest room in short film. Filmmakers who travel in tell us the crowd is the reason they come back.
More about usSubmission reminders, lineup announcements, and the occasional love letter to a short film. No spam, ever.