The Chewstick Foundation will be holding its first Bakatown Short Film Festival starting tomorrow at the Chewstick Neo-Griot Lounge and concluding on Saturday at Liberty Theatre.Chewstick is better known for its promotion of poetry and music, but said the festival demonstrates its commitment to breaking down social barriers and celebrating storytelling in all its forms.The festival will feature a series of events celebrating local film culture, storytelling and production, culminating with a showing of short films from around the world at Liberty Theatre.The project was developed in conjunction with the Future Shorts Film Festival based in England.The festival allows anyone, anywhere, to host a screening of the Future Shorts programme a feature length programme of the award-winning short films.The film festival begins at 6pm tomorrow with a screening of local submissions followed by a discussion on the filmmaking industry in Bermuda.Panellists include local filmmakers Al Seymour, Scott Neil, Milton Raposo and Donald (Detrimental) Robinson. Neil and Asha Ludwig are directors of two of the films submitted.This is a free event that will also be streamed live and archived at www.chewstick.org.The second event will take place on Friday at 9pm, with a local music video launch party at The Chewstick Lounge.This event will showcase local artists and music video filmmakers in a celebration of music video filmmaking, which has become the most prolific of the filmmaking industry in Bermuda.The launch party will feature music videos from local artists such as; Twanee’ Butterfield, Prof-A-C, Jelani, Fiyah Marshall, all the way up to international local artists like Heather Nova, Collie Buddz and Mishka. Admission is free.On Saturday the Future Shorts Films will be screened at Liberty Theatre.The collection is a series of six films that range from six to 20 minutes and display genres from real life dramas to stop-motion, and animation.There will be an opening reception to kick-off the event which will take place from 6pm in the Liberty Theatre lobby. At 7pm the shorts will start in the main theatre.The screening will end at about 9pm and will be followed by a wrap party at The Chewstick Lounge.Tickets for the Liberty Theatre event (all other events are free) will be sold for $30 and are available at The Chewstick Headquarters on Court Street, www.premiertickets.bm or by contacting Chewstick at 292 2439 or e-mailing info[AT]chewstick.org.Chewstick Members should contact Chewstick directly to receive membership discounts.Gavin Djata Smith, executive director of The Chewstick Foundation said: “Apart from Chewstick’s primary aim to be an avenue for personal growth, our secondary aim is to be a positive force in Bermuda generally and “Back of Town” specifically; constantly embedding our youth, arts, cultural and community programmes in the heart of this region.“In this vein, we are proud to re-envision this area by embracing the “Back of Town” legacy and reintroducing it as “Bakatown”; to both celebrate the deep cultural history of the area while at the same time marking a new chapter in its history as a revitalised centre of Bermudian history, culture and pride.”