Shorts Not Pants Film Festival: Ingrid Veninger on the Beauty of Brevity and Filming with Family
By Jim Slotek
Ingrid Veninger is not one of those working moms who frets about time taken away from her family. Both her son Jacob Switzer and her daughter Hallie Switzer have starred in her films, twice each.
“That’s been my secret all these years, to include my family and then make films that can travel to film festivals. And a by-product is I travel with my kids and my partner – because John (Switzer) has done the sound recording on a lot of my films.
“So, it’s a win-win for the family. It’s the only way it’s worked out all these years.
Jacob Switzer and Hannah Bussiere in If You Were Me at the Shorts Not Pants Film Festival
“I did Only (her debut feature) with Jacob, and Modra with Hallie. And now I did If You Were Me with Jacob. And previously I made Wish with Halley. It’s been two shorts back to back, one with the daughter and one with the son.”
Ingrid Veninger
If You Were Me, with Jacob Switzer and his real-life girlfriend and musical partner Hannah Bussiere, is one of the featured shorts at Shorts Not Pants, an event which was started in 2009 by film blogger James McNally. What started as a gathering in an apartment, became bigger – especially after the plug was pulled in 2013 on the late, lamented Worldwide Short Film Fest.
With the short film landscape to itself, the 2022 edition of Shorts Not Pants kicks off Friday with 57 films from 22 countries, presented in various programs at the Innis Town Hall from Nov. 18-20, and virtually from Nov. 21-27.
If You Were Me is a 13-minute film in which Jacob and Hannah play Sam and Rae, two musical partners playing a getting-to-know-you-better game of personal questions. As the questions get more intimate, it becomes clear there is a secret about to be shared that could change both their lives.
The film is an offshoot of Veninger’s search for a thesis film while earning her Masters in Cinema at York University.
“That was 2018-19, and every weekend I was shooting different kinds of exercises. Each exercise kind of helped me determine what my Masters thesis was going to be. I was doing these amazing workshops with ACTRA actors, and I started shooting bits and pieces with Jacob and Hannah at that time.”
Her thesis film eventually was the documentary The World or Nothing, about two Cuban brothers looking to become YouTube stars.
“But I had all this footage. And this summer, I sort of revisited some of it and loved the stuff that was captured with Hannah and Jacob. And when the overturning of Roe v Wade happened, I was just more motivated to get this one done.
“So, we shot a bit more in the summer, edited, remastered it, and finished it up this fall. Now it’s starting to go out in the world.” Bussiere and Switzer (who perform under the names Luna Li and Jay Feelbender) contributed tunes. The film is screening at two short film festivals this weekend, including the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, N.C.
Why a short film? Veninger, who now teaches at York, says “All my students are writing short narrative fiction. And there’s this incentive for me to make shorts so I can bring stories from the front lines back into class, because they’re all writing these 10-12 page scripts.
“Also, you have to write the story, and cast it and crew it. But really, in making a short it was three months of editing as opposed to six months. It does reduce the sort of marathon run of features a little bit.
“I thought about If You Were Me. And there were a few more branches I could have taken to the narrative that would have made it a 75 or 80 minute film. But the challenge was, how much could I compress it into a 10 or 12 or 13-minute film? There’s montages, in-synch narrative sequences. How many layers could I place simultaneously, like a piece of music that could live as a cohesive whole, and get me packing as much story as I could into the shortest amount of time?”
Short films are often considered a mere stepping stone for aspiring filmmakers who will go on to make features and never look back. Veninger sees them as worthwhile endeavours in their own right.
“I mean, didn’t Denis Villeneuve take a hiatus and come back with some shorts after making a string of successful features?” (He did four of them between 2006-11). And Denis Cote, a filmmaker I hugely respect and admire, has been making films of all lengths.
“It’s about making work with people I love and trust and respect. Wherever the length falls is cool with me.”
But she suspects her next film will be a feature, likely a revisit to the themes in If You Were Me.
“I’m wondering whether the theme of body autonomy and reproductive rights, which is really important to me, will find its way into the next feature. I don’t think I could exhaust that topic. So, you just might see that one again.”
FIVE RECOMMENDED SHORTS, FROM SHORTS NOT PANTS FESTIVAL DIRECTOR JAMES MCNALLY
Heart Valley - A first documentary from London-based Christian Cargill, this contemplative day-in-the-life of a Welsh shepherd has already won Best Documentary Short at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Gwendoline - French photographer/director Joaquim Bayle’s portrait of two post-punk musicians desperately seeking a place to play.
Scaring Women at Night - Montreal-born, London-based Karimah Zakia Issa was a nominee for the Short Cuts Award at TIFF with this story of two fearful strangers who encounter each other and try to understand what they’re afraid of and why.
The Diamond - Bosnian-born Swedish director Vedran Rupic directed this wry parable of a lonely, ambitious man who literally finds a diamond in the rough - a gem in the woods that he can’t quite reach without help.
Freedom Swimmer - Stylized documentary from Hong Kong based Australian filmmaker Olivia Martin-McGuire about a grandfather’s desperate attempt to escape China’s Cultural Revolution by swimming to Hong Kong.
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