Macie’s Parade, a short film written and directed by professional filmmaker and Canby High School grad Cooper Fitch, has been named Best Oregon Film at the Oregon Short Film Festival, which is set for this week in central Oregon.
Normally held in Portland, the festival’s 170 entries are being screened outdoors, drive-in-style at the historic Sunshine Mill Winery and Drive-Up Theater in The Dalles due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Fitch’s 2020 film Macie’s Parade took top honors amid a crowded field of work by gifted Oregon filmmakers, including Anchitta Noowong’s August, Marissa’s Dingman’s How Speaking About Suicide Can Save Lives, Faranak Sahafian’s Mirror and Melissa Gregory Rue’s Esperanza’s Turn — which has been a force on the independent circuit this year.
The film chronicles the all-too-relatable struggles of a family matriarch — the titular Macie — and her struggles to keep her family (and herself) together during a tense holiday visit by the kids and grandkids.
Lead Linda Merican was also nominated for best actress at this year’s Oregon Short Film Festival.
Fitch is known for such short, honest, funny, human and eminently relatable looks at relationships and daily life. His previous works, STUCK. and It’s Yours If You Want It, mined similar territory.
Named one of the nation’s top 100 film festivals, the Oregon Short Film Festival is a bi-annual event on the Film Festival Circuit for filmmakers and screenwriters of all genres to showcase their creative works in the Portland area.
The event was founded by author and retired filmmaker Mikel Fair who worked in the film and television industry from 1999 to 2015 as a sound mixer, production manager and field producer.
