Day 6: The short & long of it

The awards have been announced, the drinks have been served and the photographers attacked.

ShortFest 2008 comes to an end with the Best of the Fest extravaganza on Wednesday. Start working on those entries so that we may relive the chaos in 2009!

Day 5: Come dancing

ShortFest has been full of great films with great stories. There are the three Italians (and their hats) who came all the way to Palm Springs to volunteer (...and to push their marketplace film). There is Israeli filmmaker Khen Shalem ("On the Road to Tel Aviv") who, based on his work on this short, will be creating a film concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a United Nations conference in February. There is the Australian short that was a colaboration of Aussie filmmakers who met at last year's ShortFest ("Cane Cutter," whose actor-director Dustin Clare has been acting as roving party pirate). But as the fest comes to a close and the filmmakers have gotten to know one another, it's really about the dancing.

Day 4: Filmmakers on a mission

Sunday found ShortFest going strong with a packed day of film. One of the evening programs was "Boy Meets Girl," where it became apparent that the attending filmmakers had created a very supportive group based on the howling applause for each film (not that the rest of the audience wasn't lovin' the films, but you know how rowdy filmmakers get). Directors Casey Stangl ("CU@ED'S"), Chuck Rose ("Side Effects"), Jasmine Kosovic ("Kate Wakes") and a rep from "No Parking" entertained the audience with a Q&A following the show (pictured above).

Rose revealed that his short raised money for a relief fund for those involved in the writer's strike. All services were donated (with hefty help from the "CSI:NY" crew) and the actors worked for free, and Rose reflected on the great community that this project created. The film and others will be available next month on StrikeTV.

Stangl and Kosovic had also been part of a unique experience as graduates from the AFI's Directing Workshop for Women. Out of the 8 women selected to participate in the program, 5 were accepted to ShortFest. Quite impressive for few having any film experience outside of a 3-week crash course (granted, many work in theatre or production). Below are three of the talented women: Devi Snively ("Death in Charge"), Chris Sanagustin ("Fleece") & Casey Stangl ("CU@ED'S").

The filmmakers let loose at a party at Azul, and it was quickly discovered that Prince speaks the international language of filmmakers when the entertainers belted "Purple Rain" and everyone joined in.

Cute directors Brian Crano ("Official Selection") and John Irwin ("Banditos") rocked the plaid vibe. Irwin just launched SmallDreamsTV, a site that develops original short films.

Day 3: The stars at night...

The Camelot Theatre was packed for an evening of star-studded shorts on Saturday night. Jessica Beil and Kirsten Dunst garnered the spotlight before the show, with Beil's beau Justin Timberlake sneaking into his front row seat so as not to distract from her moment.
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Dunst sat in the middle of the theatre, accompanied by the producer of her ghost story film, "Welcome," starring Winona Ryder and Jason Clarke (and featuring a nice little remake of "Happy Together" by pal Jason Schwartzman). Her first foray in the director's chair was compliments of the Glamour Reel Moments series, which brings readers' stories to film and allows actresses a new role in an attempt to up the minuscule 7% female population of the Directors' Guild. At last year's ShortFest, GRM put Bryce Dallas Howard behind the camera with "Orchids" and Jennifer Aniston co-directed "Room 10." This year also witnessed Kate Hudson's first writing and directing experience with the charming GRM film, "Cutlass" (co-starring dad Kurt Russell in a wicked 70s 'stache).

Ric Halpern and Justin Wells, directors of the Tony Shaloub-staring short "LA Actors" about the fake world of Hollywood, revealed that it's a good idea to keep contacts close so that they may scratch your back later (Halpern helped Shaloub out with a previous project). Halpern plans to co-direct Commander and Chief, a film that allows a future George Bush to frustratingly reflect on how his presidency was ultimately written into history.

Beil produced and co-starred in "Hole in the Paper Sky," a moving film about an intellectual introvert (Jason Clarke, again) whose shell is broken by a lab dog. Director Bill Purple revealed that all of the actors devoted their services for free, but the dog (previously seen in Bruce Almighty) had the only paying role. Proving once again that it's a dog's life.

ShortFest Day 2: Ending to begin

Today the fest began in full force, with more films, more filmmakers and more good times. One of the evening's unique programs was Odds & Endings, a batch that ranged from the final page to the final breath and contained a good share of World Premieres.

Directors Kevin Acevedo ("The Last Page"), the Salto Brothers [Jesse & Louie] ("Finding"), producer & Ryan Goebel ("Confinement")

•"The Last Page" (WP) comically teases about the drama of a tortured prisoner that is in fact taking place inside the mind of a tortured author attempting to find the perfect ending to his novel. In order to clear his head, our literary hero sets out for coffee, only to find himself in absurd situations that still fail to provide inspiration. The director, who made the short as his thesis film for Chapman University, attended with co-writer Matt Akey and actress Mekenna Melvin. When asked about his favorite director, Acevedo replied that it was himself, because otherwise no one else would root for him -- to which Jesse seconded the motion.
•"A Small Silent Film about Death" (WP) plays off of a joke about the worst thing that could happen when an e-mail mistakenly gets sent to a widow.
•"The Last Thing to Go through a Fly's Mind" follows the reincarnation of a crude Brit who never seems to get it right as he transforms from cat to crustacean.
•"The Weight of Sunken Treasure" cleverly unfolds the memory of a man consumed by a life long past in such a way that all is far from what it seems. Tragedy finds no comfort in the passing of time.
•"Confinement" won the local Palm Springs Student Film Fest and concerns a boy who finds himself part of a tragic countdown. The Corona High School filmmakers said they were inspired by a friend with the same affliction as the central character.
•"Finding" is an impressively polished film that, like "Sunken Treasure," prefers to reveal the full picture pixel by pixel, building anticipation to the conclusion. Jesse said the secret was to make the film conclude just as the audience would prefer, yet without them being able to anticipate that desire. Tricky business. The directors revealed that they are working on creating a feature-length version that expands the short's ending, making the fact that this was the short's World Premiere all the more exciting.
The internationally-raised brothers with parents of Swedish, Polish and Dutch ancestry revealed the importance of language in film. When later speaking with Louie, he claimed that though the film takes place in Paris, it had to be in English, just as other comic videos they've made had to be in French. Expanding from dramatic sensibilities, each language expresses far more than a country's culture. He would love to do a film in Brazil or some other country where he didn't speak the language in order to tap into that unique state of mind.
•"Lightborne" is a remarkably gentle telling of a mother's final night, as her son attends to her medically while her daughter-in-law recognizes the need for a peaceful release. The film focuses on a very short period and yet alludes to an entire lifetime. An absolutely beautiful film, there were few dry eyes left in the house. Jesse complimented the film by stating that it takes a long time to start but rises like a soufflé.

ShortFest Day 1: Let the dogs out

The dogs and ponies broke out of the ShortFest gates with an impressive award-winning lineup in the Opening Night ShortSplash. The energy was evident in the sold out theatre, as the audience dove into high comedy and beautiful imagery.

•"Procrastination" got everyone in the mood with deceptively simple-looking art and stop-motion animation illustrating tactics for putting off anything and everything. The audience roared through examples such as color-coordinating book shelves, creating an elaborate teabag dipper and imagining playing a computer game with your furniture.
•"Life's Hard" finds a thief choosing the wrong woman to carjack. As he becomes a backseat driver, she turns the tables.
•"The Wednesdays" found fans through its hilarious story about an elderly couple who gets over Hump Day and onto Bingo Thursday with the help of "disco biscuits." It's actually a very sweet story about getting through the final day-to-days.
•"Tadeo Jones and the Basement of Doom" spins an Average Joe Indy into an animated quest to save pets from becoming burger patties.
•"Manon on the Asphalt" is a lovely film about a woman's final thoughts about friends and family as she lay dying in the street. A very careful reflection of moments past and the small details we associate with our loved ones.
•"Sikumi (On the Ice)" is a visually arresting film about a seal hunter who happens upon a senseless murder, the blood bold against an endless snowy landscape. It is the perfect one-act, needing no more or less information to explain the hunter and murderer's relationship or the dilemma of divulging the situation to the community. According to the film's web site, it is the first film spoken entirely in the Iñupiaq language.

Fans got their first introduction to the filmmakers at the Hilton party that followed.
•Brian Crano returns to Palm Springs with his film, "Official Selection," after bringing his comedy hit, "Rubberheart" to last year's fest.

•The fellas from "The Cousin" (producer Alex Castillo, actor Manny Montana & producer Stephen Mann above) were happy to add Palm Springs to their wild ride of 8 fests in 8 weeks. Manny recalled his excitement at first attending ShortFest two years ago. Alex teased that the film delivers 1 cup of gay in the closing credits. I'm curious to see what that measurement looks like.
•Jeremy Brunjes, the Minnesota-by-way-of-New York director of "No Parking" laughed it up with "Premature" director Rashaad Ernesto Green (below at left with ShortFest staffers Emily and David), who stated that even though HBO's American Black Film Fest provided door-to-door transportation, they failed to serve food like ShortFest. So we win.

Matthew Modine shout-out

While being interviewed about his short, "I Think I Thought" [featured in the Shooting Stars program on Saturday], Matthew Modine referred to ShortFest as "the Super Bowl of film festivals."

It's good to have him on our team. Check it out.

Viva la French Film!

French directors François Truffaut (Day for Night) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie) first cut their cinematic teeth on short films. Who is to say the next great Gallic filmmaker will not make an appearance at the 2008 ShortFest? This year's French submissions created such a stir that the festival programmers chose to highlight the country's 30 best short films, second in representation only to the United States.

The idea of French cinema may produce images of café romances, but recent offerings suggest that Cupid has taken a vacation. That does not stop mere mortals from seeking love on their own.

Actress Virginie Peignien writes and directs her first short film, "Just One Hour" ("Juste Une Heure"). When a woman approaches a stranger and suggests they have anonymous sex, the proposition is intriguing. Some women lack such daring, for example the bookish beauty in the world premiere of "Original Sin" ("Péché Originel") and the desperate wallflower in Héléne Guétary's "Animal Bloom" ("Animal Singulier") who becomes a guinea pig for a hormone injection that drives men crazy. Man is more civilized but has yet to evolve from swinging amongst the branches in Vincent Vizioz's North American premiere, "Boy in the Tree" ("La Pomme de Newton"), as the titular boy becomes ruffled by the presence of a girl with her feet firmly on the ground.

A young man cannot escape his personal oddity when it is attached squarely to his face. In Valentin Potier's "Tony Zear" ("Tony Zoreil"), Tony lives in a world too loud and judgmental for his massive auditory organs (Tony's ear, get it?), and love is a hard sell. In contrast, romance barely utters a whisper in Céline Novel's delightful, subtle comedy, "Ocean Boulevard" ("Boulevard L’Océan"). Two could-be lovers on holiday just miss each other when distracted by hobbies, but sparks ignite a careful flame.

In darker tales, love earns an expiration date. In Ronan Moucheboeuf's "Orange Juice," a wife worries when her premonitory dreams suggest that her husband will decide the beverage is not just for breakfast. With a title like "The Gravedigger" ("Le Fossoyeur"), Sylvie Benavides' short suggests an ominous end for the girlfriend of the character's soon-to-be ex-wife.

Such diverse topics find a welcome home in short films as feature films attempt to stretch French cinema and Hollywood boundaries.

"Films take an important place in France, and we are lucky that lots of producers, film companies, distributors and associations are working hard to keep it that way even if it is getting more difficult with the surge of American blockbusters," said Benavides. "I am very happy to see that these efforts are rewarded, in particular at the Cannes Film Festival with the Palme d'Or which went to a French film this year."

Other directors do not wholly share this sentiment. "Good French feature films are very rare nowadays," said Benoît Ameil. "This situation is at the same time scarring and motivating. For my short, 'A Juicy Turkey' ('La Dinde Marinée'), it helped me. There is a cinematographic area in short filmmaking that almost doesn't exist in feature films."

Expanding upon such limitations, director Marc Alepee said, "All the stories I want to tell are fantasy stories, so the problem I have with French cinema is that it does not really produce genre movies. For producers in France, fantasy is not a serious way to tell stories and express ideas. However, I think that fantasy films are the perfect way to express my point of view on the world we are living in."

Such fantasy films represent some of the more visually creative shorts of the festival. Award-winning Lorenzo Recio directs the disquieting film "Lisa" in its North American premiere, suggesting a world where Alice scurried down the wrong rabbit hole. In Alepee's film, "In the Rope" ("Dans La Corde"), a man finds himself alone on a cliff with only a rope leading to a sliver of hope. Solitude remains the theme in "Skhizein," Jérémy Clapin's 3D animated North American premiere. After colliding with a meteorite, Henry is beside himself -- exactly 91 centimeters beside himself. In a busy world, he becomes lost in the shifted shuffle.

So take note. Palm Springs may be the stepping stone for future grands directeurs.

The final countdown

ShortFest is only two short days away!

Have you planned out your schedule? Are you prepared to dig into the nitty-gritty details with the filmmakers and stars? Have you registered to shoot your own film with Kodak or practiced your acting exercises for Bill Pullman?

Let's see...3-4 programs a day...6-7 films per programs...that's about 130 films that you have no excuse not to see.

Are you ready?

Getting ready for ShortFest!

The buzz is palpable in the PSIFS office. Films are piling up, credentials are being sorted and most of all the staff and many helpful volunteers are becoming excited about the upcoming best bet of the summer -- the Palm Springs ShortFest!!

Sure, partying the night away with international filmmakers is a great reward for all of the hard work that's put into this fest, but the hard work is done to promote a great slate of films. How wild it is to think of what could become of the filmmakers who not only will have their films screened at ShortFest, but who will be there to present them. More filmmakers than ever are attending because they know that this is the place to be.

Come join them on August 21!