The Small File Media Festival was a roaring success! We screened over 100 works by artists in 16 countries, in beautifully curated programs, to 165 attendees. For safety during the pandemic, we held the festival online with minimal environmental impact, as each movie was 5 MB or less!
We had fantastic panel discussions: makers' forums one and two; a small-file aesthetics panel moderated by Clint Enns (lo-fi media maker and theorist, Montréal), with Mena El Shazly (Medrar for Contemporary Art, Cairo), Azadeh Emadi (Glasgow U), Radek Przedpełski, and me; and a youth panel moderated by Sanjana Karthik. Festive opening and awards ceremonies! (all documentation squashed to small files before sharing on Vimeo.)

Awards!
Audience choice  
First Place: Hân Phạm, Once Upon a Time Second Place tie Trevor Byrne, Sticky Note Studies #1 & #2 (Orange and Pink)  François Quevillon, Exhaust
Youth choice – Phoebe Todd-Parrish, Searching: 
Smallest file – Daniel Carter, Star Trek: Voyager Intro in 283kb Aesthetic invention tie  Azadeh Emadi, Entangled Orb Andy Catsirelis, Noise of the Stream
Best Cat Video – Pierre Leicher, Catfessions #1
Best Narrative – Colin Williscroft, O’Hara Lane
Best Documentary – Mike Hazard, Something from nothing (Dr. Evermor)
Best Porn – Dooley Murphy, Shameless Plug
Best Animation – Ben Mosher, Cloud Loaves
Best Obsolete Technology – Ashley Blewer, Throttled
Best Post-Apocalyptic – John Tinneny, The End
Best Cross-Platform Work—Nathan Wyatt Kiesman,  New Beginnings
Curators’ Choice – Leanne Dunic, Melt
Best Actor – Weihan Zhou, Moththth
Most Sensuous – Paul Clay & Sarah Kantrowitz, I Missed You
Best New Media Idiocy (shout out to Olga Goriunova)– Hany Rashed, My Instagram
Best Underdog – Daupo, And Success Will Be Your Name

Most of the artists gave us permission to link to their works after the festival: coming soon. We’ll announce the call for work for the Second Annual Small File Media Festival in spring 2021. Meanwhile, check out the aesthetic and technical tips on the festival site!