The JCCC Japanese Shorts Festival
This spring, JCCC hosted the 1st Annual Japanese Shorts Festival (JSF) which ended with a celebration of the student filmmakers’ accomplishments at the JSF Screening & Awards Ceremony on April 12 in the Hudson Auditorium.
Fourteen original Japanese-language shorts were submitted for judgment this year, representing the work of thirty-six students from JCCC, the University of Kansas, the Kansas City Art Institute, and Wichita State University. Topics of the shorts included a historically factual samurai assassination, the adventures of a team of ghost hunters, an unsuccessful cloning experiment, magical teleporting bedroom slippers, an illustration of Kawaii girl culture, the renewed inspiration of a music student, a murder by a demon cat, the guilt of a careless pet sitter, talking horses in the news, a magical teleporting doorway, a skeletal clothes salesman who upsets a witch, a parody of the JSF itself, an original love song, and a philosophical lesson about stoicism.
Watch all fourteen shorts (subtitled in English)
As you can tell from those brief descriptions, the JSF puts virtually no limits on filmmakers’ topics or forms. There are no required or suggested themes because, although grammar and vocabulary skills are important factors in communication, the point of the JSF is not to determine who is “best” at Japanese syntax and semantics.* Successful communication also includes visual and aural nonverbal components. Recognizing this, the JSF encourages students to integrate the Japanese they are learning with music, sound effects, voice tone, facial expressions, gestures, camera work, and lighting to communicate their message to their audience—regardless of whether that message is serious or just for fun.
So, if you’re going to be a Japanese language student in the Spring 2026 semester at any level at any secondary or post-secondary school in Kansas or Missouri, take a look at our shorts requirements and the Festival website, then consider forming a production team of up to four classmates and joining us next year. Entry forms for the 2nd Annual Japanese Shorts Festival will be posted on the Festival website January 26, 2026.
*Although the 1st Annual JSF featured entries from students in beginning through advanced Japanese classes, a team of four first-semester Japanese language students won the top award, 2025’s Best Short. Watch all the entrants.