YOUNGSTOWN - A short film festival is coming to Youngstown State University. 

The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown State University's Center of Contemporary Art, announced the opening of The Short Shorts Festival next week.

The festival will highlight the works of Ilena Finocchi, Illya Mousavijad, and Michael Schmidt from October 24 until November 4. 

There will be a viewing party at the museum on Wednesday, October 25 at 5:30 p.m. 

The festival features Finocchi's first animated short film 'Creatures in My House.' The stop motion animated short follows a house full of peculiar monsters waking up in an askew home. 

Illya Mousavijad's Between a Lost Home and a Losing Destination is a computer animation film/video piece using 3D scanning and Photogrammetry. This animation investigates the depth and limits of the exile and migration experience as they relate the artist's heritage/Iranian diaspora. The translation to 3D/computer aims to explore the notions of proximity, distance, access, and inaccessibility.

Michael Schmidt's two stop-motion animations, Passages and Collapse, feature events and experiences of employees of AEP Conesville, a coal-fired power plant operated out of Coshocton County, Ohio, from 1957 to 2020. These animations were made as part of a performance that gave voice to the loss of a way of life and paid tribute to the generations of coal-energy the plant produced.

The McDonough galleries are open Tuesday-Saturday from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm. The Museum is free and open to the public.