HISTORY of a SWEET film festival (2011-2024+)

Commercials, Trailers, PSAs, Documentaries, Animated Films, Fictional Films, Music Videos, Young Filmmakers, International Films, the list keeps growing and growing in the art of short films!

On June 7th, 2011, the first biennial Chocolate City Short Film Festival debuted in Burlington, WI.  Burlington is known as "Chocolate City USA" and has strong connections to the Nestle company (Hosting the huge "ChocolateFest" three day festival over labor day weekend).  This short film festival was dedicated to showing short films from amateurs (students elementary through high school) as well as adult professionals.  The event is held in downtown Burlington at the historic Plaza Theater and sponsored by the Burlington Rotary (over $1000 in prizes).  It is the intention of The Chocolate Short Film Festival to take place every odd year in the week following ChocolateFest.

On June 2nd, 2013, the second ever Chocolate City Short Film Festival was held again at the Plaza Theater in downtown Burlington, WI.  The response was even greater with a full house and many other firsts.  Local celebrities (Miss Burlington Ashely Monti) and national celebrities (Ron Kohlman, filmmaker and former producer of the number hit show ER) were in attendance.

One June 7th 2015, four years to the day the first festival began, The Chocolate City Short Film Festival went world wide.  Almost two thousand entries from over 80 countries poured in, bringing the festival to a whole new level.  It was only fitting that the festival rename itself as the Chocolate City INTERNATIONAL Short Film Festival.  A whole new chapter had begun.

On June 4th, 2017, the fourth ever biennial festival was held.  OVER 3,000 submissions from all over the world were submitted.  Filmmakers from 9 to 79 submitted their works and the proud tradition continued.  Local celebrity and filmmaker BJ Rayni was on hand to present awards.  In addition trailers of independent filmmakers kicked off the fest.  

In the spirit of community service, the Chocolate City Short Film Festival is free to the public.  Attendees are encouraged to bring a food item for the local food pantry or a small monetary donation.  The fifth biennial Chocolate City International Short Film Festival is slated to be June 2 3-5PM 2019 at the Plaza Theater in downtown Burlington, Wisconsin.  We look forward to continuing the tradition.

The fifth biennial Chocolate City International Short Film Festival was held on Sunday June 2, 2019. Local celebrity and filmmaker BJ Rayni was on hand to present awards. The films included submissions from filmmakers ages 8 to 80 from a variety of different countries. The results of that 2019 festival is as follows:

Young Filmmaker Award 

3rd Place- Team Yum Yum- Abby Nie (Wisconsin) 

2nd Place Emoji Kids- Allyson Siepl, Peyton Kaminski, & 

Athena Grimes (Wisconsin) 

1st Place- My Red Ball- Esabella Strickland (British Columbia)

Student PSAs / Commercials 

3rd Place- Words Hurt Cyberbullying- Ridho Mapp (California) 

2nd Place- Don't Stare, Be Aware- Charles Baumeister (Wisconsin) 

1st Place- Disability- David Stang, Jacob Smith (Wisconsin)

Music Videos 

3rd Place- Way it Goes- Megan Hurst (Wisconsin) 

2nd Place- Immortal- Dom Mann (Illinois) 

1st Place- Fire- Nathan Kadota (California)

Animated Films (Adult & Students) 

3rd Place- Evil Villain!- Lee Witz (California) 

2nd Place- Take Back Calamity Canyon- Taylor Torres (Wisconsin) 

1st Place- Knitcromancer- Rebecca Seamans (Pennsylvania)

Student Documentaries 

3rd Place- Cultural Foods- Chase Ketterhagen (Wisconsin) 

2nd Place- The American Dream- Andrea Gomez (Wisconsin) 

1st Place- A Prom Story: Dramatized Documentary- Students of Bill Wald (Wisconsin)

Student Fictional Films 

3rd Place- Blue Wave- Emma Gillian (Florida) 

2nd Place- Santa Woman- Ari Williams (New York) 

1st Place- Not So Scary Story- Nick Sherman (California)

Open Genre (Adult- U.S.) 

3rd Place- Average Mom- Cathy Yonek (California) 

2nd Place- Origami Bull- Summer Medina (California) 

1st Place- Don't Save Me- Tee Forest (Maryland)

International Film (Non-U.S.) 

3rd Place- First Day in Paris- Zaur Dzhafarov (France) 

2nd Place- He Can- Rupnar Dutta (India) 

1st Place- Let Me Breath With My Dream- Novera Hasan Nikkon (Bangladesh)

The sixth biennial Chocolate City International Short Film Festival was going to be held June 2021 but was canceled due to the global pandemic. After a brief restructuring, we are happy to announce that that sixth ever Chocolate City International Short Film Festival will be back May 19, 2024 (thirteen years since it all began back in 2011). It will be held at the Plaza Theater in downtown Burlington, Wisconsin, USA from 3-5pm . We look forward to continuing the tradition.