Dear Diary 1944 wins "Best Horror Short", The Magic Coffin Bank wins "Best Noir Short" and "Best Original Score"

September, 2025

It was a busy month for Christopher Pinto - Winning multiple "Best" and Honorable mentions for his short films Dear Diary 1944 and The Magic Coffin Bank.

"Honestly I was really surprised, especially for the Best Score. I had done all the music myself for The Magic Coffin Bank, recorded the background stuff on my 33 year old keyboard and played the sax and clarinet solos myself, but I was floored that I won for my music at Cinema Scares," says Pinto, who was up against several bigger-budget films with more "traditional horror" sounding scores. "They realized that my big band and 1950s era jazz songs, some of which I wrote myself, were done by me, and it impressed them that I was able to use that genre of music in a supernatural movie".

Soon after returning from Cinema Scares in Shelbyville, Indiana, Pinto learned he was awarded with "Best Horror Short" from the Hollywood International Golden Age Film Festival. "I think they liked that part of the flick was done as a Noir mystery set in the late 1940s, truly going with the Golden Age theme."

And then came "Best Noir Short" from The Night of Shorts in Milano, Italy, technically securing Pinto as an international award-winning filmmaker. "It's incredibly exciting," he said about the honors. "I just started doing this a couple of years ago, I work with literally no budget (I paid the wonderful actress Bella Le Sante for Dear Diary 1944 and that was it) and I'm doing it for fun, for me and my friends. To be honored with such support from the festival circuit is a real dream. I hope I can keep on going, making films that make people laugh, or think, or cringe intentionally, or just enjoy".

Pinto is currently in pre-production of his next horror-comedy short, "Horror Insurance", filming in February, 2026.