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.