Short Films - suggestions and help

william_kent

Well-known member
more accidents waiting to happen


Keep Off Train Tracks


Play Safe - Kites and Planes

end up in flames...


Broken Guns
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Cheers for the tips and do keep them coming, gonna watch everything in this thread now or later and consider them for future nights. People are sending me films from all directions and I'm getting more into the short film format than ever before.

Starting to think about short films and how to put them together, realizing that selecting the films to show is kinda like DJ-ing in that you have to select not simply the best films or your favorites, but have to find the ones that meet your criteria and which are appropriate for the audience and the venue etc Also similarities in choosing the order you show them in; you need to start with something immediate that will grab their attention and good enough to make them stay, but you shouldn't start with your best stuff or you will have nowhere left to go and things will feel anticlimactic.

Anyway in case anyone is interested these are the films I've shown so far... I will keep updating the list each time I do another one in case anyone wants to watch along at home.

Month One
La Cabina (Antonio Mercero)
The Mascot (Starewicz)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
Visa de Censure X (Pierre Clementi)

Month 2
The Black Tower (John Smith)
Life in the XXIst Century (Iosu Vakerizzo)
La Fee Sanginuaire (Roland Lethem)
Foetal Attraction (Roz Gomersall)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
See if you can find the shorts on these rich, they are all pretty good


Esp this one



And I think there's euro and world versions in the same series.

Martin scorseses short the big shave is a classic.


What else?

Mash up by Jesse Lawrence is good.


"pussyole"

And Andrea Arnold's wasp maybe?


Watched Mash Up which was pretty decent cheers. Thing is non-native English speakers are gonna struggle to understand the accent/slang.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Oh I forgot my all time favourite short ever which is hard to find online but here it is for you.

Nothing to see below that tantalizing teaser line... if you would be so kind as to give me the title of the film and maybe the director too, then I'm sure we* can find it and - if we deem it of sufficient quality and interest - capture it for film night.

*I say "we" cos seeing as I have a Russian emigre staying with me I've decided that he can earn his keep - therefore I've added Taras to my team and promoted him to the role of Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Film Night as well as the joint positions of Technical Director and Creative Consultant.
 
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DLaurent

Well-known member
I can't really, sorry, I don't remember them well enough, but it was as I was going through an art house phase I was taken in by the 'severe' imagery like herds of animals, it probably has a political metaphor element that went over my head at the time, but I don't remember them well enough for anything other than a cursory mention. I pretended to like and understand films by the likes of Parajanox and he rated him highly. Used to think Maya Deren was a hero, and Peleshian's films are a lot more symbolic for want of a better word even if I couldn't decipher them.

I do like the odd short film now but nothing from the 'art' sphere, stuff like those Russian animations of Hemingway with a bit of story would do me, Alan Clarke films, or a stop motion one I saw of Kobo Abe's Box Man.

Running time is a big part of my film watching choices though, with 70 minutes being optimum, which is why I watch noir, not much help though!
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
La Jetee is still a favourite of mine, bit obvious though. Hedgehog in the Fog. Simon of the Desert (yes I like some Bunuel films). Bread and Alley. The Red Balloon. Those are a few I watched years ago that I'd watch again to see if I still like them.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I can't really, sorry, I don't remember them well enough, but it was as I was going through an art house phase I was taken in by the 'severe' imagery like herds of animals, it probably has a political metaphor element that went over my head at the time, but I don't remember them well enough for anything other than a cursory mention. I pretended to like and understand films by the likes of Parajanox and he rated him highly. Used to think Maya Deren was a hero, and Peleshian's films are a lot more symbolic for want of a better word even if I couldn't decipher them.

I do like the odd short film now but nothing from the 'art' sphere, stuff like those Russian animations of Hemingway with a bit of story would do me, Alan Clarke films, or a stop motion one I saw of Kobo Abe's Box Man.

Running time is a big part of my film watching choices though, with 70 minutes being optimum, which is why I watch noir, not much help though!
I guess Peleshian is Armenian as is Paradjanov I think.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
I watched something called Bridges-Go-Round by someone called Shirley Clarke the other day, from 1985. It's four minutes long and might be your kind of thing (maybe) rich. there's two versions, one has a bleeps and bloops soundtrack, that's the better version I think. maybe its famous, i don't know.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Thanks mate, that does sound promising, I don't suppose you have a link to it or a trailer or anything by any chance? Tomorrow I have a three hour bus journey to Porto and I plan to spend it researching films for the next night(s).

There is an issue in that it's four minutes long, what I normally do is have a break after each film for cigs and to go to the bar, but if I have a break again after four minutes then I'll have more breaks than films - so with films less than ten minutes long it's obviously better to show a few in quick succession without a break. And that's fine of course, but, just the way I function I guess, if I show films together then ideally I would like there to be some link, some reason beyond their length for running them together. So if I show this I'm posing myself the problem of finding something somehow similar. Well, I can just ignore that of course but I'll at least try.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Thanks mate, that does sound promising, I don't suppose you have a link to it or a trailer or anything by any chance? Tomorrow I have a three hour bus journey to Porto and I plan to spend it researching films for the next night(s).

There is an issue in that it's four minutes long, what I normally do is have a break after each film for cigs and to go to the bar, but if I have a break again after four minutes then I'll have more breaks than films - so with films less than ten minutes long it's obviously better to show a few in quick succession without a break. And that's fine of course, but, just the way I function I guess, if I show films together then ideally I would like there to be some link, some reason beyond their length for running them together. So if I show this I'm posing myself the problem of finding something somehow similar. Well, I can just ignore that of course but I'll at least try.
yeah i get you.


the youtube video has the two versions back to back for whatever reason.


this is also very much along the same lines. so much so in fact that the criteron streaming thing has already compiled them into a subcategory in the 'new york shorts' section of their website.

there's another thing very similar to this that i saw ages ago searching for videos of nyc 80s graffiti.....wonder if i can find it....found it. looks like shit on youtube though.

 
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