Closing out the summer!
Hard to believe that the summer has already come and is nearly gone. It’s been an eventful one — I’m excited to update you with everything that’s happened this month, and what you can look forward to in September and onwards!
We attended an early viewing event for Space Cowboy!
I was lucky to be able to roadtrip to Pittsburgh, PA on August 6th to attend a screening event for our feature-length coming-of-age film Space Cowboy!
Huge thanks to the Lindsay Theater & Cultural Center for honoring us and this project with its Emerging Filmmaker Showcase.
Was also an awesome opportunity to catch up with Lorenzo Zottoli — lead actor and fellow producer on the project — whom I hadn’t seen in-person since I last visited him in Los Angeles in the summer of 2025!
Keep an eye out for more news from this project as its post-production process nears completion!
Meet the spotlighted artist of August 2026: Jamie Simiele!
As the third edition of the monthly ‘1716 Artist Spotlight,’ I’d like to introduce you to writer-director Jamie Simiele, the creator of award-winning short film pansies!
Obsessed with superhero movies growing up, Jamie mentally inserted himself and his friends into superhero stories, until receiving the gift of a screenwriting software subscription at 14 years old allowed him to finally put his ideas on the page.
His junior-year thesis at the Purchase Conservatory of Film and Media, his queer coming-of-age short film pansies premiered at the 2025 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, where it was awarded ‘Outstanding Cinematography’.
It would go on to screen at several festivals, including the Reeling: Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival in 2025 and the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) in 2026.
Having grown up closeted in a small, conservative town in Upstate New York, Jamie cites his environment, relationship to his sisters, and general queer teenage experience as influences on his brand of storytelling.
Now in the final stages of post-production for his senior-year thesis film, Jamie’s quietly begun the simultaneous development of a feature-length coming-of-age story that may serve as the spiritual continuation of pansies.
Collaborating with other emerging filmmakers as a producer and assistant director, Jamie continues his career in Brooklyn, NY!
Interested in watching his work? 1716 just released pansies on our YouTube:
pansies released on our YouTube channel!
The queer coming-of-age short film from filmmaker Jamie Simiele, pansies, released on our YouTube channel on August 21st!
From my first time seeing pansies in Seattle, WA — screening back to back with my own short Shallow — I immediately felt that it was a special film, told by a special filmmaker. I hope everyone enjoys this piece as much as I do!
You can log your viewing experience and share your thoughts with us and the filmmaker Jamie here on Letterboxd.
We’ve nearly finished post-production on our short film Midlo!
With principal photography wrapping in May of this year, we’re finishing the post-production process on Midlo now before the end of September!
With writer-director Alina McMahon at the helm, I’m very grateful for the continued hard work of our talented post team, including editor Robbie Cook, sound designer Pedro Paz, composer Casey Lenhart, and colorist Ieva Jaruševičiūtė!
Stay tuned for more from this project and follow along on Instagram at @midlomovie as we begin our festival run this fall!
We wrapped production on a new comedy short film!
We had an awesome week in Vermont this past month working on a new comedy short film!
Led by director Lee Baladejo and writer-actors Isabel Stewart and Eric Canfield, we shot for three fun days in Pownal, VT, with a small, tight-knit cast & crew.
A screenplay that’s been in the works since last year, we’re excited to keep you posted on the project as it begins post-production!
In other news, the project’s director of photography, Elizabeth Guenther, is the filmmaker behind another short film coming soon from 1716…
FEMCEL is coming to our YouTube channel on October 1st!
A romance-thriller short film, FEMCEL, is a passion project by filmmaker Elizabeth Guenther, created while in her final year studying cinematography as an undergrad at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Over the course of a half-dozen late nights in the spring of 2024, working with Elizabeth to produce the short became one of my all-time favorite collaborative experiences.
I’m extremely excited to share this work with the world, which many talented artists contributed to — including director of photography Benjamin Wanko, actors Abigail K. Garcia and Jack Zubieta, and composer Nathan Shanahan — to name a few.
Having already screened once at 1716 Digital’s own independent filmmaker screening event this past January in New York, the project will be featured again on the big screen for our New York community…
We’re hosting a release event for FEMCEL in New York!
In celebration of FEMCEL releasing online, we’ll be holding a screening for our New York community this month!
As of writing this, the location and date of the event have yet to be determined
However, if you’re interested, stay tuned to our Instagram to get the details as soon as they’re announced!
We hope that you can make it and look forward to seeing you there!
See you soon, and stay posted for next month’s update!
Stay tuned for more details as they become available, and don’t forget to follow along at @1716digital on all platforms!