Short Film Face Off: Vote for the Season 19 Winner

If you have been keeping an eye on the Saturday night lineup, you have already caught the first half of CBC's Short Film Face Off. The 19th season is in full swing, and it is a national competition produced right here in Halifax, hosted by the writer and broadcaster Amanda Parris. The premise is simple: nine short films from across Canada are screened over four one-hour episodes, and the audience gets to decide who walks away with the prize.

The episodes air on Saturdays at 8 p.m. ET, which is 9 p.m. here in the Atlantic time zone. The first three have already run — August 29, September 5, and September 12 — and the finale lands this coming Saturday, September 19, when the winner is finally announced. If you have fallen behind, there is no need to panic: all nine films are available to stream on CBC Gem, so you can catch up on what you missed before the final vote closes.

Each episode pairs three films, and the range is wide. The first episode opened with Usman Qazi's After Prayer, a seven-minute piece about a ten-year-old boy trying to get a girl's attention from the car next to his without his mother noticing; Beth Evans' Unit 303, a six-minute pitch for a future in a specific apartment; and Frank Tremblay's Pudding Chomeur, an eleven-minute Quebec film about a daughter recreating her father's signature dessert on the day of his funeral. The second episode leaned into family and struggle, with Jo Boland's Grief Dogs, Dylan Duff's Terry., and the harrowing Hatch, an eleven-minute film from British Columbia about a refugee boy trapped inside a water tanker. The third episode, which aired this past Saturday, brought us Leili's Photo, Gordon Mihan's Happy Campers from New Brunswick, and Anushay Sheikh's Same Time Next Year.

Watching is only half the point, though. The whole competition is built around the vote, and that is where you come in. The grand prize winner is chosen by the viewing audience through an online vote, and the stakes are real: the winning filmmaker takes home the Telefilm Canada Short Film Face Off Award, which comes with C$30,000 to put toward their next project. It is a significant sum for a short filmmaker, and it is decided by people watching at home rather than a closed jury.

Behind the scenes, the show is run by Halifax-based producer Bill Niven, who describes it as one of the highest-profile showcases for short film in the country. He frames the nine directors and their teams as a cross-section of Canada's changing demographics, with themes that lean toward the universal and the personal — family dynamics, love, and inspiration. Telefilm Canada, the Crown corporation that backs the award, keeps a regional office here in Halifax along with its headquarters in Montreal and offices in Vancouver and Toronto, so the local connection runs deeper than just where the show is produced.

With the finale on Saturday, now is the time to catch up on CBC Gem and cast your vote. It is a low-effort way to support Canadian filmmakers, and the best part is that you get to be the one who decides where that C$30,000 goes.