The Media Film Festival is back with a host of short films from local (and beyond) filmmakers

Filmmaker Adam Chhour grew up in Philadelphia, working at a Chinese takeout owned by his immigrant parents. For his senior thesis project at Montclair State University, he made a short film called A Taste of China.

In the 15-minute film, Chhour tells the story of his father’s departure from China, the early days of his parents running a takeout restaurant in West Philadelphia, and his going off to college.

“Growing up, not really seeing stories such as this, being told about Asian Americans, and really, the ins and outs of our families and the family dynamics,” Chhour stated as a reason why he chose this story. “But also, the sacrifices that my parents made…listening to them about their stories about coming to America, and what they had to overcome.”

Chhour’s film was shot over three days last winter, at Master Wok in West Philadelphia.A Taste of China will play Saturday night at the Media Film Festival, which is in its 16th year this year.

In 2008, the first Media Film Festival took place in the Delaware County borough of Media. In the beginning, it included some full-length feature films but the festival has focused entirely on short films for the last decade or so. When the festival started, it was only two days-long, leaving the organizers with limited time that they felt was better filled up by short films.

“If you do a feature, then you can only show a couple of things, so a few years ago we made the decision to just do shorts,” Tamme McClelland, the Media Film Festival’s program director, told The Inquirer.

This year’s edition will take place this weekend at the Media Theater (104 East State Street, Media). There’s an opening program on Thursday, March 30, followed by a pair of shorts programs on Friday March 31, the second of which is the Media Fright Fest horror program. The Media Film Festival wraps up with matinee and evening programs, as well as a pair of talks, on Saturday April 1.

A whole host of films with local ties are a part of the program: Mark L. Mazzeo’s Solidarity, a comedy/drama about a group of office workers; local filmmaker S.J. Doss’ horror short Dear Mirror; Joe Ronca’s One Last Glance, which is set in part in a Christmas Tree lot in Broomall. Then there is Matthew Paul Harrison’s Inner City High-Ball, about the culture of graffiti on train cars; Jordan Anstatt’s Nobody Skates But Me, which is set in a skate park, and Val McAdoo’s I See You, which, per the festival program, is about a woman who “sees the beauty and potential in discarded items…and in discarded people.”

This year’s festival features more than 40 short films, from all over the world including three from Iran — Mohammad Zare’s Dot, Zara Torkamanlou’s Sona, and Farnoosh Abedi’s The Sprayer.

“We get a lot of Iranian submissions,” McClelland said, noting that due to sanctions, those filmmakers are not able to send money to the United States for submission fees. “Their filmmaking is really incredible,” she added.

In between the shorts programs on April 1, the festival will also feature a pair of talks. Inquirer writer-turned-filmmaker Brigette ReDavid will speak on “Funding and Pitching Your Film.” And that afternoon, area native Garrett Brown, who invented the Steadicam and the SkyCam, will give a talk called “Garrett Brown and the Moving Camera.”

Like a lot of festivals, the Media Film Festival went with varying mixtures of virtual and drive-in showings during the last few years, but is back to full in-person this year.

The Media Film Festival runs March 31-April 1 at Media Theatre For The Performing Arts (104 E State St, Media). https://www.mediaartscouncil.org/mediafilmfestival