‘Palm Sunday’, Directed by Wes Andre Goodrich ’23 and Produced by Patrick Nichols ’22, Named Finalist in The Wrap’s Shortlist Film Festival
Palm Sunday, a thesis film directed by Wes Andre Goodrich ’23 and produced by Patrick Nichols ’22, was recently named a student film finalist for The Wrap’s 2023 Shortlist Film Festival.
Celebrating the best in award-winning shorts from around the world, the ShortList Film Festival streams a selection of finalist films for the public to watch and vote for during a two-week period every summer. Once the festival closes, an Industry Jury Prize and Audience Prize are awarded to the top films.
Palm Sunday is among the eight shorts to make the festival’s student film finalist roster. Inspired by true events, the film is a southern gothic drama about a young Black Caribbean Immigrant who attempts to assimilate into an all-white church in 1970s Raleigh, North Carolina.
The film was awarded the ACE Entertainment Award for Best Film at the 2023 Columbia University Film Festival as well as named Best Narrative Drama Short at the Longleaf Film Festival. Palm Sunday has also been selected to screen at the Brooklyn Film Festival, the Roxbury International Film Festival, the Micheaux Film Festival, and the Morehouse Human Rights Film Festival, which will take place in September 2023. The film was supported by the 2022 Katharina Otto-Bernstein ’92 Mentorship and Development Prize.
Watch the trailer for Palm Sunday here.
Wes Andre Goodrich is a Brooklyn based writer/director. Since joining Columbia University’s graduate film program, Wes has written and directed three short films: Goodnight, Fred, which highlights the radical revolutionary, Fred Hampton; Rush, a story about two young Black men’s experience in a predominately white fraternity; and, Pair, a sci-fi erotic thriller about a couple discovering a secret on their anniversary. He is currently developing Heretics, a television pilot about a trio of megachurch janitors investigating a murder that goes all the way to the top. Wes is currently in the festival run for both Palm Sunday and Speak Up Brotha!, a short romance film produced by Black Man Films. Wes is the recipient of a 2022 Columbia University Dean’s Grant and is a 2022 Coverfly Diverso Writing Fellow.
Patrick Nichols is a film producer and editor living in New York City where he received his MFA in Creative Producing at Columbia University. He recently finished principal photography as a producer on his first feature film, Face of the Earth. Patrick has produced several short films, including Inoculation, which premiered at the 2020 RiverRun International Film Festival, and Good Dog, which premiered at the 2022 Yonkers Film Festival. Three other short films he has produced, Palm Sunday, Choke Hold, and Esperance to Fremantle, are premiering in 2023. Patrick was a recipient of the 2021 Michael Hausman/Filmhaus Foundation Award.