Treasures from the WWSFF
Two days, close to three hundred films, and a slew of conferences – including a master-class on the meticulous art of editing with Ronald Sanders – the World Wide Short Film Festival comes to an end. There was so much to see, it was easy to forego a screening or two, but what of the films there-in? For those who simply couldn't be in two places at once, or for those who went to see the musical festivities of North by North East instead, here is a selection of gems uncovered within the dense jungle of digibeta and 35mm moments which unfolded during the festival.
Dog
Suzie Templeton
6 Minutes
UK
While still a student at the Royal College of Art Suzie Templeton created this stunning display of stop motion. 
A boy, his father, and their dog live alone in a house after the boy's mother has died. Realistically portrayed textures, deep shadows, and fluid motion combine to tell a dark story about death and reassurance. The family is clearly poverty stricken, but they are also grief stricken. The father can barely sleep and won't leave the house. One morning the boy finds his dog sick, but his father reassures him the dog will be alright. Every night before bed the boy looks to his father and his father lovingly tells his son his mother died peacefully, and that she will always be with him. When the dog becomes too ill to care for, the father has to make a painful decision which colors his son's image of him.
Told with such care and craft for the art of stop motion, Dog was a virtuoso work from an immanent new filmmaker. Since creating Dog in 2001, Templeton has gone on to craft a feature film illustrating Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Shown at the Royal Albert Hall in 2006 accompanied by music from Philharmonia Orchestra, Peter and the Wolf was then nominated for an Oscar and won for the Best Short Film, Animated category in 2008.
Templeton is a brilliant voice in stop-motion feature films, and it is safe to say her next project will be as beautiful and ambitious as her earlier work.
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Watch Templeton's Peter and The Wolf in four parts on Youtube.
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To visit Suzie Templeton's website, click here: http://www.suzietempleton.com/index.html
The Spine
Chris Landreth
15 Minutes
Canada 
Chris Landreth has a fire in his eyes. He is dangerously intelligent and his films probe into deep layers of psychoanalysis while striving for beautiful imagery both visionary and cinematic. Originally an engineer, Landreth earned an MS in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois. He gravitated towards animation after being hired to test and refine computer graphics software. The results of his introduction to the software were the dark shorts Bingo and The End. Landreth shot to fame when his short-film about late animator Ryan Larkin won an Oscar award and returned the former NFB phenom to the spotlight.
The Spine is Landreth's latest creation, and is a collaboration with C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, Autodesk Canada, and Seneca College School of Communication Arts. Under the direction of Landreth, this team has brought to life a hopeful film about co-dependency. The stage is set in a marriage counselling office where various couples are illustrated in Landreth's now unmistakable Psycho-realism style, rendering them straw filled, wooded, or withering away like Dan. Angela, our protagonist with flaps peeling from her forehead is intrigued by Dan's hopelessness and grants us entrance into Dan's world. The unfolding of the story is everything, so it will remain unspoken, but the visuals of this film are haunting. The unforgettable scene where Dan grows a spine is a tour-de-force, but the final shot exploded my perception - not because it was grandiose, but because it was elegant and it was visionary.
Will Landreth ever make a feature film? Something in me wants him to, but he so beautifully utilizes his film's short lengths yet manages to engage the viewer into feeling genuine existential feelings. Contemplative and engrossing, The Spine won me over.
The Archive
Sean Dunne
8 Minutes
USA 
This little film was featured in the previous article looking forward to the festival, and after seeing it, the film deserves to be here as well. In short, Paul Mawhinney owns the world's largest record collection. The opening shot of the film shows Mawhinney holding one of the very first flat vinyl records ever made, and from there he goes on to explain only a fraction of all the music contained in his collection is available on CD, leaving massive amounts of forgotten artists collecting dust. It isn't Mawhinney's mission to revive long lost musicians, but it is to encourage music appreciation.
The film is not heavy-handed in its message, but the purpose is clear: this record collection needs to be saved, protected, housed in a museum, or made into a library of its very own. In 2008, Paul had to close his record store, and now his archive - having earned that status from the Library of Congress - is at risk too. If he doesn't manage to find a buyer, he has no other choice but to throw it all away. Estimated at approximately $50 million, Mawhinney is asking a mere $3 million for his massive collection.
This story is sad, but truthful. Times are changing, Mawhinney suffers from diabetes and is legally blind, and his records simply aren't valuable to anyone but himself it seems. For his collection to meet the grave would be like forgetting decades of history.
To watch the short film click here:
http://veryapeproductions.com/Archive/
Skin
Rhys Graham
27 Minutes
Australia
What immediately polarizes people to either despise or be delighted by tattoos? Is it the sanctimony of the skin, or the underground culture surrounding it which makes some people so immediately repulsed by it? And why is that coloring the body with pain is so appealing to so many people? These questions only become more complicated when one attempts to consider tattooing a form of art. 
For the subject of Rhys Graham's film Skin, Geoff Ostling, there is no question about it, he loves tattooing, considers it art, and wants his body preserved after his death. Why spend so much money, and so many excruciating hours developing the glorious suit of flowers if it is only going to be burned? Graham's quest to explore the life of sixty-five year old Geoff Ostling and his fascination with tattoos leads the viewer along a trail of specialists until more nagging questions begin to bite. Ultimately though, the film is a meditation on what it means to leave something behind when one dies.
The stars of this film are really Ostling and the dedicated artist Ex de Medici, who has committed herself to illuminating each petal and sprig in Ostling's 'garden.' Their relationship is unusual in that it is neither business, nor friendship. It isn't between artist and model, nor is it a collaboration. It's one of those beautiful things that just exists, and as the movie progresses Ostling's life appears to be that way as well. A rebel with a huge heart wanting nothing more than to illustrate his epidermis, Ostling is unassuming, surprising, and uncannily innocent.
Another's Reason (La raison de l'autre)
Foued Mansour
26 Minutes
France
Intelligently conceived, purposeful and clearly written, La raison de l'autre offers the unique commodity abundant in the best short films of the festival: perspective.
In the film, a young welfare office employee Caroline is given a challenging case; a man who apparently just can't find a job. Threatened with the possibility of having to face the commission, Caroline tells the man he has one month to find work. Later in the evening Caroline is invited to accompany a co-worker to a newly opened restaurant owned by a former welfare client. While at dinner Caroline spots, in the back of the kitchen, her troubling client who apparently couldn't find a job. The stakes only get higher when more clients spring up who are desperate for their piece of the social pie, yet Caroline employer wants her to simply turn a blind eye.
This film plays into the ambiguous grey area where rationale escapes action. There is no easy answer to untangle the complex web weaved in La raison de l'autre, nor is there any easy solution to providing appropriate social well being for every man, woman, and child. Some people are going to take more, because they need more, and some are going to suffer, unjustly. Yet each person has a story and needs to ask oneself, "How did I get here?" In the film, Caroline is put into a tense position, and it is clear she was asking herself that very question.
La raison de l'autre is fascinating because it provides a humane glimpse into France's social net and paints uncompromising portraits of motivation in the face of desperation. The film was written precisely and knowledgeably by Mansour with a down-to-earth suspense which avoided sensationalism. This sort of film could have easily gotten out of hand and meandered into social commentary, but it never does. Instead it offers little insights into each character's lives without revealing everything. That is how this film works, because that is how life works; it is up to each person to piece together all tiny glimpses until a whole assembles itself only to be unwoven again.
Still, it never hurts to gain a little perspective.
How to Be Alone
Andrea Dorfman
5 minutes
Canada 
This film displays indie filmmaking at it's best. While this whimsical song and poem set to visual imagery might turn adorable at times, it never becomes precious or sappy. Andrea Dorfman and Tania Davis are weird enough - and I mean that in a good way - to exclaim the virtues of spending time alone while remaining humble and infectiously inspiring.
The film is basically an illustration to accompany Tania Davis' poem, which is the narration for the film. It unravels with a simple yet sincere musical soundtrack and imagery captured in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For those who have either visited or lived in Halifax, it can be a very isolating place. It isn't a place to go to find other people; it is a place to go to find oneself. For Davis and Dorfman this means going out dancing alone, eating dinner by yourself, and writing a poem to accompany a short film appreciating solitude.
If nothing else, this little piece is a refreshing example from two creative individuals to watch for in the future.
The Lost Tribes of New York City
Carolyn London, Andy London
3 Minutes
USA
Although it is very humorous and light upon first viewing, the underlying commentary of Carolyn and Andy London's latest short film is poignant and urgent.
Another short film during the same screening, Overburden, told the story of a small Northern Alberta native community which is being forced to reconsider its plot of land in the face of encroaching development. Overburden addressed its issue head on, in a typical documentary style, and, for what it was, it worked.
The Lost Tribes of New York City, however, sneaks up and pounces when one realizes the voices of the mailboxes, magazine stands, pipes, and telephones are real people transformed into city hardware. It's as if the people, particularly minorities, have disappeared into the streets and all that's left of them is the echo of their voices in the metallic and concrete fixtures of the city. The two drunks in the subway are now immortalized by the film in the guise of a magazine stand, yet who would have heard there voices otherwise?
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Catalog
Blair Fukumura
4 Minutes
Canada
Blair Fukumura's first short film was shown during the Canadian Comedy Shorts screening, yet the implications of its exercise are deeply disturbing: society really hasn't progressed much since the 1970's, the age of the catalogue.
The film is simply a slideshow with narration and music, but it is constructed with wit and purpose. Whether or not Fukumura chose each image carefully, it doesn't matter. The current age of technology allows for new aesthetics to emerge, ones that challenge conventions of craft. Fukumura's little piece looks cheap, completed overnight on a laptop, with images downloaded from Google image search, but it actually works. The observation it is making about culture is keen and perceptive, regardless of how pristine the short looks.
While Catalog wasn't the finest short film at the festival, it was different, refreshing, and honest.
To watch the short film click here: http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi1880425241/
Git Gob
Philip Eddols
2 Minutes
Canada 
This is a beautiful film. It’s incredibly stupid and nearly pointless, but both entertaining and perplexing.
Two monsters discuss the purpose of a hole. One of them acts on his opinions and stuffs his head into the hole. Upside he stands thinking he is wearing a hat, but really the world is on his head. What does this mean? An answer could be dreamed up and resolved, but it probably means nothing. This film shows humorously the beauty of curiosity.
Philip Eddols is the creator of this peculiar film, as well as the creator of another twisted short film A Wonderful Day among other things. He is a talented young man with a vision informed by childhood television shows turned inside out. Unpretentious and still maturing, Eddols is undoubtedly an interesting Canadian filmmaker to look out for.
To watch the short film click here: http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi1880425241/
To visit Philip Eddols' website click here: http://www.philipeddolls.com/
Impasse
Bram Schouw
5 Minutes
Netherlands 
There is a quiet inclination that something is awry in this startling five minute film without dialogue. A man with a shaved head boards a train followed by a women. She sits across from him and he can't stop looking at her. A bond is formed as the two exchange glances, nearly speaking to each other yet they never cross the impasse of silence, and the women leaves the train. The ending is quite shocking, because as a viewer opinions and assumptions are built up only to come crashing down.
There is so much going on in the five minutes of this film, so many implications harboured, it would be difficult to address each one. There are the big things like, racism and extremism, but then there are small things like awkwardness and fear of connecting. There is also an exploration of body language, how hostile or innocent a person looks by only reading their physicality. There are also the implications, perhaps, of a potential love story, condensed into a moment. There is also something within the word impasse, derived from the French verb passer meaning 'to pass', and the act of traveling on a train. Every strand stemming from this short might not neatly coalesce into a whole, but each tickles at something profund and poignant.
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Adjustment
Ian Mackinnon
7 Minutes
UK
Among 20 other memorable films, Adjustment is a remarkable animated short film created in 2006 when Ian Mackinnon was still a student at the Royal College of Art. The film chronicles one man's obsessive love for a woman who escapes him. She is always present, but one gets the feeling it is in-fact the protagonist who is losing his grip on reality as he desperately tries to cling to the moments he experiences. Ambitiously animated, this short film is a clever meditation on the motivations of creativity and whether or not it is better to sometimes just live life instead of trying to capture it.
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To visit Ian Mackinnon's website, click here: http://ianmackinnon.co.uk/
