THE CHAIR screened in competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, won the Jury Prize at SXSW, the Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Best Director at Hollyshorts, and went on to play at major festivals around the world including Berlin and Telluride. It is a beautiful, haunting film about the spread of a lethal black mold across a small southern town, and the devastating effects on one boy and his family.

FESTIVALS / SCREENINGS / AWARDS

CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2012
PALME D’OR NOMINEE
SXSW 2012
WINNER -JURY PRIZE NARRATIVE SHORT
LA FILM FESTIVAL 2012
WINNER – JURY PRIZE NARRATIVE SHORT
TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL
63rd INTERNATIONAL BERLINALE
ASPEN SHORTSFEST 2012
WINNER – EMERGING FILMMAKER AWARD
CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2012
NOMINEE – GOLD HUGO FOR BEST SHORT
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
NOMINEE – BEST SHORT FILM
WARSAW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
NOMINEE – SHORT GRAND PRIX
FIRST RUN FILM FESTIVAL 2012
WINNER – FIRST PRIZE KING AWARD
WINNER – WASSERMAN DIRECTING AWARD
HOLLYSHORTS
WINNER – BEST DIRECTOR
RIVERRUN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2012
HAMPTONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2012

ARTICLES / QUOTES

Grainger David’s narrative short, The Chair, is a lyrical, gorgeous meditation on death, grief and resilience as filtered through a young boy’s fluid memory. Set in the humid American south, and filmed on landscapes that are familiar, on one hand, and rendered as poetic dreamscapes, on the other, the short film is ultimately a moving coming-of-age film in which a family tragedy nudges its young protagonist to muse on matters that have concerned great minds throughout the ages – religion, family, morality, and the ways in which we are all connected.
LA FILM FESTIVAL

Brilliant short film which deservedly received 1 of 10 coveted spaces in the official Cannes Film Fest competition, and played to a sold out crowd. The Chair has been sweeping the film festival circuit with “Best Short” and “Best Director” win after win. It is so rare to see such a masterpiece in short filmmaking. Every aspect of the film craft was excellent. This film rings true of the Southern life of a people living on the other side of the tracks, in a genre all too often riddled with cliché after cliché, but Grainger David adeptly handles what very well could be true of “mold” in the mossy bayou-filled Southern states. This film is mesmerizing and unforgettable. The Chair is a must see.
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