Stage 32 Short Film Contest Winner

Update on Our 2015 Winner, Director Matt Kazman (Killer) Stage 32 member Matt Kazman's film, KILLER, premiered worldwide in the Stage 32 Short Film Program at the Raindance Film Festival where Matt was featured in Variety. Through Stage 32 Matt went on to meet with The Weinstein Company and with the producer of Short Term 12. Matt's film KILLER went on to screen as an official selection at Sundance Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, IFFBoston, Florida Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival. Matt has gone on to work on Middle of The Night Show for MTV. Matt will be one of the judges for the final round of entries for the 2016 Stage 32 Short Film Contest.

"So last summer as I was finishing my short film, I submitted it to the contest. When I submitted I knew that they were going to be picking a few finalists to be screening at that year's Raindance Film Festival. What I didn't know was that they would be picking one of those films and they would be taking the director to London themselves. I found  that out when RB emailed me few weeks later telling me that my film was the winning film. So I was very surprised and very happy to hear that news.

Few weeks later I flew out to London, and when I got there I met RB and Amanda and I hung out with them. They are really nice and I had a really good time talking to them. And my second day there, we had screening. The screening was a lot of fun, anyone who saw the short up on Sunday can obviously tell it's a really great batch of shorts and I was really happy to be part of them. The audience there seemed really love it, too. At the end of the screening, RB brought me down and we had a really thoughtful Q&A.

Another nice thing came about from that trip was that while I was out there Variety wrote an article about Stage 32 and I got part of that. The reporter sat down and he interviewed me and that was really nice. 

Once I got back from London, another nice few thing that happened because of the contest were that I got to meet a few other producers and have sit downs. I really appreciate Stage 32 and RB for you to setting all this up. It was a really cool contest and very fun experience. And I really encourage anyone who has a short film to submit it. Because I truly submitted it, it was shot in the dark and it was the first thing I submitted to. And I didn't know what anyone thought about it and to get support for the film early on from them was really big deal. It was really encouraging and they treated me really well.

So, if you have a short film. I definitely suggest that you submit it to this years short film contest."

-Matt Kazman