About Crazy8s
Crazy8s is an 8-day short filmmaking challenge and program that provides support and funding to emerging filmmakers to produce a short film, and provides training opportunities to crew and cast. Each year, more than 100 teams apply to be part of Crazy8s.
Crazy8s is run by the Crazy8s Film Society, a registered British Columbia not-for-profit organization. Its mandate is to foster support for emerging and mid-career BC-based, Canadian short filmmakers who have limited access to resources or funding to produce professional-quality short-form content. Since 1999, Crazy8s has produced 145 short films that have gone on to win awards at film festivals worldwide.
Crazy8s Film Society believes in equality, diversity and community. The program welcomes contributions from all, and is not limited to, people of varied age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, and religious views.
Crazy8s Film Society is grateful to live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish People, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations.
How It Works
Submit a short film concept in a 3-minute video pitch, along with the first 3 pages of your script. A jury of industry professionals and independent film community peers evaluates these submissions.
40 quarterfinalists pitch live, in person, to a separate jury of industry professionals and independent film community peers.
12 semifinalists workshop their full script drafts with professional story editors, and submit a final draft for evaluation by the live pitch jury.
6 finalist winners receive $2,000 each, and an in-kind production package and post-production services worth up to $50,000 provided by sponsors from the local film industry and community, to help them complete their short films within an 8-day timeframe.
The finished films and teams are celebrated at a Gala Screening, the largest single-evening film screening event in Vancouver, attended by members of the independent filmmaking community; government, municipal, corporate, and industry funders, sponsors, and partners; industry professionals; and the general public.
Our History
Crazy8s was founded in 1999 by Vancouver, British Columbia-based members of the Director’s Guild. Up to 8 participating filmmakers and their teams were given $800, and 800 feet of film, to complete an 8-minute short film in 8 days.
In 2008, the Crazy8s Film Society incorporated as a registered BC-based not-for-profit organization. It continued to run the program as an annual 8-day filmmaking challenge with the addition of pre-production mentorship and workshops, and with increased industry production and post-production support.
The program has continued to evolve to the present day: Each year, 6 participating filmmakers and their teams are given $2,000, mentorship and workshop support, and professional production/post-production packages to help them complete an 8-12 minute film within an 8-day timeframe.
Since 1999, Crazy8s has given opportunities to 145 filmmakers and their teams of close to 4,500 producers, writers, cinematographers, art directors, editors, composers, cast and crew, to produce professional-quality short films; present them to an audience of independent filmmaking community and industry professionals in Vancouver; and later, to audiences around the globe through film festivals and other distribution channels.
Crazy8s has provided career-furthering opportunities to more than 4,000 people in the last 25 years. It has become a program to discover and foster new talent, and to receive valuable on-set training. It is a place for filmmakers, crew, and performers to create work that can be used to launch or to advance their careers in the film industry.
Many Crazy8s alumni go on to have vibrant film and television industry careers:
Dylan Akio Smith’s Man. Feel. Pain. (Crazy8s 2004) was awarded Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, which led to his acceptance to the Canadian Film Centre and the production of his first feature film, The Cabin Movie.
Zach Lipovksy’s Crazy Late (Crazy8s 2005) landed him a spot on the Steven Spielberg show On the Lot, where he placed in the Top 5. Zach subsequently directed and executive-produced on the Disney series Mech X-4; co-directed and co-wrote the feature film Freaks; and is slated to co-direct the latest feature film in the Final Destination franchise.
Elle-Maija Tailfeathers has a successful award-winning directing career, including the feature The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open and most recently the mini-series Little Bird (APTN lumi), since directing A Red Girl’s Reasoning (Crazy8s 2012).
Nimisha Mukerji’s In The Deep (2013) helped kick-start her award-winning career as a narrative fiction director in film and television, after an initial start in documentary filmmaking.
Shannon Kohli’s experience directing A Family of Ghosts (Crazy8s 2016) led to a successful directing career in episodic television, after an initial start in the camera department.
After Cypher (Crazy8s 2017), director/writer Lawrence Le Lam received funding from Telefilm’s Talent To Watch for his feature film script The Chinatown Diner.
Josh Aries and Daniel Irvin went on to co-create the Bell Fund’s first TikTok scripted series, Five Fingers of Fury: Idle Hands – after co-directing and co-writing Mr. James Is Dead (Crazy8s 2020).
Kay Shioma Metchie has moved in the direction of screenwriting, most recently as a writer for Canada/US network television, after directing her short screenplay Weeds Are Flowers, Too (Crazy8s 2022).
Ava Maria Safai, director/writer of the award-winning Zip (Crazy8s 2023), has gone on to direct and write a Telefilm Talent To Watch feature, Foreigner.
Other Crazy8s participants such as Carl Bessai, Elan Mastai, Tracy D Smith, Tyson Hepburn, Tony Mirza, Jem Garrard, Shauna Johannesen, Joel Ashton McCarthy, Thomas Affolter, Trevor Carroll, Kailey & Sam Spear, Jerome Yoo, Ali Liebert, Jay Kamal, Luvia Petersen, Shakil Jessa, Kenny Welsh, Stephanie Izsak, Rukiya Bernard, Jessie Doucet, and Brenna Goodwin-McCabe have all benefited tremendously from the experience toward further success in the film industry.
In addition to supporting directors, Crazy8s has provided opportunities for producers, writers, performers, cinematographers, editors, and a host of other crew positions to gain valuable experience and build working relationships that often continue for many years to come.
Over the past 25 years, more than 36,000 people have attended the annual Crazy8s Gala Screenings, and the films have appeared in over 700 international film festivals with many being broadcast on Canadian television and on streaming platforms internationally.