Shorts Not Pants Film Fest: Bits and Bites of the Best in Abbreviated Storytelling
By Jim Slotek
For those who feast on film, the quirkily named festival Shorts Not Pants is the equivalent of tapas or dim sum, little tastes of life, some real, some fictional, all from the heart.
Now in its 11th year, Shorts Not Pants – which takes place in Toronto November 17 to 19 at the Carlton Cinema – offers up 57 films from 20 countries, all under a half-hour (and some as short as a few minutes).
There are gems, and of-the-moment critical darlings, like Ice Merchants, from Portuguese animator João Gonzalez, which was nominated for an Oscar this year for Best Animated Short Film.
Both beautiful and unsettling, it’s the story of a father and young son who live precariously atop a snow-packed mountain, and who parachute every day with ice to sell to the village below. The route back is via a motorcycle powering a cable. The animation design is clever, the father having outsized legs that seem to go on forever, a visual device that forces us into the child’s perspective.
Nakwaxda’xw elder Colleen Hemphill, rendered in stop-motion in Tiny.
Other films we pre-screened from this year’s Shorts Not Pants include:
A History of the World According to Getty Images
This short documentary from Norwegian Richard Misek is essentially a screed against the commercial archive giant whose watermark is inescapable on images across the ‘Net. These images – particularly the historical ones – are often in the public domain, which doesn’t necessarily make them freely available. In 18 powerful minutes, Misek travels through history showing famous footage from 1906’s A Trip Down Market Street (footage of life in San Francisco mere days before the famous earthquake that all but destroyed it), to the burning of the Hindenburg to the H-bomb blast at Bikini Atoll – all of it effectively only available behind Getty Images’ paywall. This isn’t 60 Minutes, and there is no response from Getty. But it’s a revelatory short nonetheless.
Ambiguity and metaphor may be the best friend of those who would protest a tyrannical regime. Iranian filmmaker Farnoosh Abedi created this dark animated short set in a ruined post-apocalyptic city, where gas-mask-wearing soldiers roam the streets, ready to spray poison on any seedlings that sprout colourfully amid the grey rubble. A small boy does his best to hide the vulnerable greenery, and eventually does soften the heart of one of the faceless soldiers. The Sprayer could be interpreted as general praise of indefatigable “lost causes.” But, in a country that has jailed its filmmakers, you know there’s more meaning beneath the surface.
From my hometown of Winnipeg comes a remarkably simple, very funny film whose audio is entirely composed of increasingly angry voice messages. A city bureaucrat, who we never see or hear, and whose only act throughout is to delete said messages, receives repeated calls from a worker in another department who wants to share his vision of park benches in otherwise barren spots along the roads and highways (which we see plenty of). Municipal Relaxation Mode is clearly less about park benches than it is about loneliness inappropriately expressed.
Unexpected friends Jens Jorn Spottag and Leif Andree in Knight of Fortune.
Egyptian director Morad Mostafa’s 25-minute film about a race to rendezvous with a refugee boat is like the last act of a feature to which we arrived late. We meet 17-year-old Eissa (Kenyi Marcellino), who is taking refuge in a church, along with an infant, both of whom are being encouraged to leave. There is a reference to having escaped an event where deaths were involved. Elsewhere, he connects with the child’s mother (Kenzy Mohamed) and a problematic journey on a motorbike begins. Spare dialogue aside, Marcellino’s determined face speaks volumes throughout. I Promise You Paradise was the first Egyptian film to win the Rail d’Or Award at Cannes.
Knight of Fortune (Ridder Lykke)
This odd and touching Danish film about two strangers who meet over their wives’ coffins both made me laugh and moved me. Karl (Leif Andree) is left in a room to say goodbye to his deceased spouse, but can’t bring himself to open the lid, opting to repair a malfunctioning light fixture instead. He meets the similarly afflicted, and oddly talkative, Torben (Jens Jorn Spottag) via adjoining bathroom stalls with the transfer of toilet paper. There’s a surprise twist, but it’s the instant, if initially reluctant, rapport between Karl and Torben that shines in the film.
West Coast filmmakers Ritchie Hemphill and Ryan Haché interviewed Hemphill’s aged mother Colleen, a Nakwaxda’xw elder, about her childhood living aboard a traditional “float house” with her siblings and parents. Her memories are dramatized in stop-motion that lends surreality to the lens of time. But the memories of a life on the water, constantly swimming, paint a vivid a picture of an unimaginable and alluring life as a marine creature of sorts, not just living off of the sea but on it.
This is What the World Looks Like When You’re Gone
Death is complicated, especially when you didn’t particularly like the dearly departed, but feel their loss anyway. Steen Starr’s poetic film is like a letter to her dead sister, augmented by old photos, recounting moments of almost connecting, her sister’s battles with mental affliction, and the existential question of what remains of the world when one leaves it. Possibly the most personal film of Shorts Not Pants.
Yanni
Rachid Allaoua’s film about an Algerian teen living in a less-than-accepting town in Quebec touches on the all-too-common case of the victimized becoming a victimizer. Yanni (Zachary Kaddouri-Champagne) wants nothing more than to be left alone by the bullies who target him. And the addition of another Muslim family to the town gives him hope that the bullies’ attentions will turn. Instead, they demand he join them in an act of persecution against the Islamic newcomers, with the understanding he’ll be left alone. There are hitches in the execution of the ugly prank, but the meanness of it hits hard, and Yanni’s feelings of guilty clearly show on Kaddouri Champagne’s face.
Making Babies (Faire un enfant)
Eric K. Boulianne’s story, about a Quebec couple (Florence Blain Mbaye and Boulianne himself) trying, frustratingly, to have a baby, is a movie with almost nothing but sex, but is not the least bit sexy. The predictability of their ennui once sex becomes work can be off-putting, but it also speaks to the truth experienced by many.
For those who want to dig deeper into the short filmmaking experience, Shorts Not Pants will have panel discussions for and from filmmakers and industry professionals. The panels take place at the Carlton from 10:30 a.m. to noon, Saturday and Sunday.
CLICK HERE For more information