Building on three wildly successful years of programming in Japan, where short films quickly came to be known as “short shorts,” in 2002 the Short Shorts Film Festival in Los Angeles was founded as a nonprofit arts organization under IRS code 501(c)3. Pacific Voice co-produces the North American festival, providing resources, office management, and personnel to organize the event.

In April 2002, the festival held its inaugural stateside event at the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California presenting a selection of the films that screened in Short Shorts in Tokyo that summer. Attendees including actors Colin Farrell (The Recruit, Telephone Booth) and Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park, An Ideal Husband), director Michael Apted (Enough, The World Is Not Enough) and screenwriter and director Steve Zaillian (Gangs of New York, Schindler’s List) raved to the media about the event. In 2003 the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, American Honda Motor Company, and Fujifilm came on board, and the second annual event once again drew audience raves and significant industry interest.

Expanding to the U.S., the Short Shorts organizers offer emerging filmmakers exposure in Hollywood and leverage the festival’s history and presence in Asia to highlight works from the Far East among their international lineup of shorts. In 2004, the festival’s western expansion continues with tour dates scheduled in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico where with the support of the Tourism Board of Baja California, Short Shorts will be the region’s first-ever film festival! Through these new North American venues, Short Shorts further advances the mission it first introduced in Japan five years ago to celebrate short film and new talents in cinema.