From this year’s Santa Fe Independent Film Festival’s Shorts Program, nine films were selected and screened under the category of New Mexico Shorts. This category required that a portion, if not all, footage be shot in the state. In supporting the origins of the festival, Executive Director Jacques Paisner said that when organizers started their screenings five years ago, they were in fact New Mexico filmmakers, and believed other filmmakers from the state “deserve[d] to play for a full house.” In his introduction to the New Mexico Shorts Program on Oct. 16 at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts, Paisner invited the directors to present themselves to their audience, who ranged from students to seniors. “These young talented people are the future here in Santa Fe,” Paisner said, motioning to the young filmmakers.“It all starts with their vision. At the beginning, we’d often show almost any New Mexico film because we wanted to be supportive, but this year the competition became tougher than we’ve ever seen it. Each film you’ll see is a testament to that.” Indeed, after the screening was over, I felt—as a film student, a New Mexico resident, and annual SFIFF attendee—that every film demonstrated an inspiring amount of hard work, along with some quirky and enchanting stories.   88 Miles to Moscow, directed by Karen Clienke SFIFF Description: Niki may have missed the train, but don’t miss the heart of her story: a mother-daughter relationship in all its beautiful complexity. For any woman who remembers those uncomfortable talks with an obnoxiously protective mother, Karen Glienke’s 88 Miles to Moscow is relatable and all the more comedic. The film utilizes an interesting technique of cross-cutting between two main scenarios: the young Niki hitching a ride with a strange Russian boy (after missing...

Thousands of people come from other cities and states to be a part of Santa Fe’s Zozobra celebration: the burning of a giant marionette called “Old man Gloom” or “Zozobra,” which dispels the hardships and travails of the past year. Zozobra means, literally, “anxiety” in Spanish, but what does Zozobra really means for people who come to the oldest capital city in the United States for this celebration? If there was a synonym for  Zozobra at the Sept. 5 burning, it was “family.” The whole Fort Marcy Park was full of families sharing just their time. Ben Gomez, a Vietnam veteran, has been coming to this event since he was a kid. He used to bring his son; now also his granddaughters come with them. “It’s an important day because the whole family meets every year. When my son was a kid, he danced up there. We just come here, sit in the yard and spend the whole day together. For us this is an important tradition, we all come together, buy funny hats and we become this in a family day. We just enjoy being together.” Friendship also had its place at Zozobra. The whole park was full of teenagers, both enjoying themselves, and volunteering. One group had come from Northport School, in New York, as part of the International Baccalaureate Program. In this program, they go to a city every year to help in any event. Last year, they went to New Orleans, and this year they came to Santa Fe, where they seemed impressed with the city and the event itself. “This is really different from New York, and we love it,” Anna said. “Yesterday we were in Pueblo, helping in one of the kitchens for poor people, and today we...