In the theatre world, no film takes as little time to watch as a short film. A short, in the parlance of the filmmaker, is any motion picture not long enough to be considered a feature film, though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stipulates that it has a runtime of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.
Now, making feature-length movies is hard enough work to tell a story that’s visually compelling. Now try telling a story in 15 minutes or less. Try one minute even. There’s no way that Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson has that kind of talent.
In the next few weeks, metro Edmonton filmgoers will get two festivals that put their focus on shorts. Here’s a short look at some of what's in store.
Gotta Minute Film Festival: Sept. 24 to 30
If you find yourself waiting for the LRT next week, keep your eyes peeled for a free movie playing on a nearby electronic ad display. Western Canada’s first film festival for commuters is called Gotta Minute, probably because each of the selected screenings takes 60 seconds exactly.“Instead of people going to a movie theatre to sit down and attend a curated film program, we would put them out in places where people weren’t expecting it,” said festival co-ordinator Heather Noel, who describes GMFF as a festival of public art.
“We see media everywhere we go but most of the time it is advertising. We tend to tune it out, or curse it, or get sucked in by it. I think that this is something we’re lacking in public spaces. I would like to see more art than advertising personally.”
Now in its milestone fifth year, Gotta Minute started from the same model as the Toronto Underground Film Festival. It partners with Pattison OneStop, the advertising company that owns and operates the display screens at the train stations. Every one out of five minutes, each screen plays one of six short films in a regular rotation. A new rotation of six films plays on the ad screens each of the first six days making 36 altogether. You can visit some locations of the Edmonton Public Library or even Metro Cinema or Galerie Cité at La Cité Francophone to see all 36 films. As per typical film fest fashion, a jury deliberates on awarding films in several categories while online votes are tabulated to determine the Audience Choice Award.
On the closing day, the winning films are revealed for all to view. The awards ceremony itself is open to the public and is held at Ziedler Hall in the Citadel Theatre starting at 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 30. The winning films are then screened at the theatre, complete with live musical accompaniment.
In addition to being exactly 60 seconds, all of the films are also without sound or dialogue in order to encourage the art of visual storytelling. The films range through all genres and tones from documentary to narrative to experimental to comedic to dramatic to animation and beyond.
“Part of it is just practical and part of it is also the intriguing challenge to filmmakers to see what they can do with a minute of silent footage,” Noel said. “I think they are eye-catching … they stand out. You very quickly realize when you’re seeing one that this is not an ad. With things like YouTube and social media, we see videos all the time. I think the challenge aspect of this creates something different and special. It’s really cool how much someone can get out of one minute.”
St. Albert’s Stephen Baden participated in the 2015 festival with a few creations including one called Agony: a psychological look at one character’s inner turmoil while waiting for a text response to an emotional and sensitive question. His film Afternoon Snack, on the other hand, was a single take shot of a young man’s face as tears rolled from his eyes. Since then, he has gone on to work with a local media and marketing agency. He also recently won a Telus Storyhive competition. He was given $40,000 to produce the just released short film Dive, a futuristic thriller where technology allows the police to explore the memories of murder victims as a way of identifying their killers. The technology, unfortunately, has unforeseen consequences.
While many filmmakers come from the Edmonton area, there are still a number of Canadian and even international contributors. Catherine Dubois is entering the competition again after taking the coveted first prize last year for her work, Rain on Flowers.
Her new animated entry called Recreation is about how in order to truly recreate something, you need to destroy the old to give life to the new. She really loves the opportunity and the experience that Gotta Minute offers.
“It's not intimidating the way other festivals might be because you only need to put together a minute-long film, which is a very manageable amount. A minute does pose some challenges as you really need to prioritize what's important to fit the time, but I find people tend to get more creative when there are limits imposed. With the films being displayed in the LRT stations, at libraries, and online, it really opens up your film to a larger audience and gets more people interacting with your art,” she said.
For more information or to view films from past years, visit www.gottaminutefilmfestival.com.
Edmonton International Film Festival: Sept. 27 to Oct. 6
Feature films are the mainstay of the long-running Edmonton International Film Festival but it has as long of a history of celebrating the shorts, too.“From Day 1, I have always been a huge supporter of the short film genre because I believe that those filmmakers are often overlooked with the major film festivals,” said EIFF director Kerrie Long. “We work hard to make our short filmmakers feel loved.”
She added that she and her team have worked hard to establish the festival as an Oscar qualifying fest. In doing so, they have discovered a groundswell of support from short filmmakers.
“We honestly believe that short filmmakers ultimately want to make a feature film. Often they use their short film as a calling card to get in to open doors for them.”
She has a point: Steven Spielberg was 22 when he made a short called Amblin’, which won several film festival awards. It eventually led to him becoming the youngest director ever signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the festival offers its Studio A(lberta), a series of four programs featuring short films by Alberta talent.
Frederick Kroetsch and St. Albert-raised Kurt Spenrath might harbour that same dream but really they just love telling visual stories. Through their production company Open Sky Pictures, they are returning to EIFF with Snow Warrior: a look at the lifestyle and culture of bicycle couriers in Edmonton in the middle of winter.
“The one thing that’s hard to catch on film is that they don’t just do this once. They do this all winter,” Spenrath said. “When it’s summer, you can usually hug that parking lane and stay out of traffic, but in winter when nothing is plowed, you’re right in the middle of it.”
The short focuses on one young courier, following her around as she makes deliveries and struggles with traffic, often facing beleaguered drivers and poor road conditions. The production of the film required some unique camera setups for director of photography aAron munson (sic), also of St. Albert.
Another marvellous short in the fest is Holy Angels by Jay Cardinal Villeneuve. The Cree/Métis filmmaker was hired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to record testimony from adult survivors of the residential schools system. He came to hear from Lena Wandering Spirit and decided that her story would make for a wonderful short film. He was right.
The film uses impressionistic imagery (including shadow puppetry and dance by a young actress playing the part of Lena as a child) interspersed with actual interview footage. Wandering Spirit recounts the suffering that she endured over six years at Holy Angels Residential School in Fort Chipewyan.
Rather than dwell on the horrors and injustices, Villeneuve uses the film as a tool for reconciliation by showing her in full power of her healing by telling the world things that had been kept secret for so long. Through her own words and the visual of the child dancing on screen, the result is a redemptive triumph of the resilient Wandering Spirit.
“Dance is the lifeline that reconnects Lena with the little girl she was before being taken to residential school. It was imperative that Phoenix performed the healing dance in the residential school, not only as a way to interpret Lena’s memories, but also to provide healing in a place that desperately needed it,” Villeneuve stated.
It’s a remarkably touching and important piece, one that takes less than 15 minutes.
Visit www.edmontonfilmfest.com for further information including showtimes.
