The film Titus & Mirabella, directed by Melania Crișan, won the award for best comedy short film at the 40th edition of the Breckenridge Festival in Colorado, the United States, which took place between September 16th and 19th.
The Breckenridge Film Festival is one of the oldest festivals in the United States, dating back to 1981. The festival is ranked as a USA Today Top 20 Film Festival and continually hits the Top 100 Film Festival list on the FilmFreeway submissions platform. The rich history of the Breck Film Festival includes guests such as Alan Arkin, James Earl Jones, Robert Loggia, Marsha Mason, Sydney Pollack, Mary Steenburgen, and many more.
Titus & Mirabella is a romantic comedy about the first date between two quirky people who have never had a relationship before, but who desperately want one. The cast includes actors Axel Mustache, Melania Crișan, and Nicolas Bach. The cinematography is created by Benjamin Strobel.
The film celebrated its premiere in 2020 and has since won several major awards at international film festivals: the award for Best Romantic Short Film at the Lady Filmmakers Festival in Beverly Hills, the award for Best Comedy Short Film at the Oniros Film Awards, the Silver Award at the Spotlight Short Film Awards in Atlanta. Melania Crișan also won the award for Best Actress in a short film for her role at the Cyrus International Film Festival in Toronto, Canada, and Axel Mustache was nominated for Best Actor in a short film at the Lady Festival Filmmakers.
The short film is produced by Charmion Productions and is a German-Romanian-English co-production. The filming took place in 2016, in the city of Passau in Germany and benefited from sponsorships from various companies in the city as well as a sponsorship from the University of Passau. The post-production was completed in Romania and England. The short film’s dialogue is in English. Due to lack of funds, the post-production was suspended for two years to be resumed in 2019 and completed in 2020.
Titus & Mirabella is distributed by ShortsTV on their TV channels in the United States and Europe. ShortsTV is a worldwide network dedicated to short films and has over 13,000 titles in its catalog. Shorts TV has been the presenter of Oscar-nominated short film releases since 2006.
Melania Crisan is a Romanian actress, director, and screenwriter, born in Reghin, Mureș County. Titus & Mirabella is her first film as a writer, director, and producer. In 2013 she obtained her degree in acting in Cluj, Romania at Babeș-Bolyai University and immediately after that she followed another acting study for two years at the Athanor Academy, in Passau, Germany. While studying in Germany, she got her first lead role in a German independent film. After graduation from Drama School, Melania continued to work as an actor in various TV productions in Germany, Romania as well as in film projects in the UK.