Festival’s short films big on ‘innate charm’
SHOWCASE: Feature by Vancouver-based director Arnason highlights 2015 Shortest Day offerings at various city venues
The Shortest Day began in France in 2011. The concept was simple.
Showcase different genres of short films as the calendar edges ever closer to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.
In the past four years, the event has gone global with festivals in 50-plus nations.
The 2014 cross-Canada series involved more than 179 free screenings in 91 venues ranging from movie theatres to libraries, cultural centres and so on. This year, communities throughout B.C. are involved from Friday to Monday.
Vancouver-based director Aubrey Arnason’s Kindergarten, Da Bin Ich Wieder is featured in the Family (seven to 77 years old) program at the Cinematheque on Sunday at 3 p.m.
“I’m a VFS acting grad who started in acting and then went into hosting in TV (on The Wedding Belles, others) and then entered into directing,” says Arnason. “I wrote, directed and starred in Kindergarten, which came out of the Crazy 8 contest. It’s based on the fact that when my father took a job in Germany, I went to kindergarten there and hated it, so my mother took me out and I never went at all.”
The film is something of a quest to fit in for the lead character, a dysfunctional adult who returns to school to learn the basics she missed such as learning to line up, follow directions and — naturally — fall in love with the teacher.
Family truths skate in and out of the fictional tale, including a tres Canadian hockey angle.
Arnason’s father Chuck and brother Tyler are both former NHL players. She admits there is another short film out there that draws upon the experience of having grown up so close to the national sporting obsession.
“I have one brewing about a little girl and her little brother that is set in the ’80s and revolves around her obsession to sing the national anthem at a game,” she says.
“Personally, I figure skated. But I also spent a lot of other time growing up in rinks.”
This is Arnason’s first participation at the Shortest Day and she feels honoured to have her film selected for the cross-Canada screenings. The unique settings for the free screenings is rewarding because the movies are seen in both typical urban centres and many small, remote communities where such material might only be accessed through the Internet.
The 2015 Shortest Day features 28 shorts divided into five themed programs: Kids (under eight, 61 minutes), family (seven to 77, 56 minutes), dramas and comedies (16 and over, 91 minutes) and the new musical category (16 and over, 74 minutes).
Among the titles is If I Was God, the latest from Oscar-winning Canadian animator Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back) and a contender for this year’s Academy Awards.
Arnason says that while budgets and schedules are certainly factors in why so many short films are made, there is a whole skill set that develops in making a successful short.
“In fact, it turns out that telling a story in a short amount of time is really a rewarding and challenging thing,” she says.
“And there is an innate charm of short films as they become more like fairy tales or fables with that kind of concise but playful, weird way of developing the narrative.”
So the short tangents become a kind of quick hit that can become addictive to the viewer the same way it is for those who direct them.
There are more places to have your films screened besides festivals when they are short. Television, from broadcast to specialty networks, often needs to fill small amounts of time and short films fit the bill. This gives your work a longer life span than a feature often gets.
“That reach is pretty exciting and it’s great to see so many categories that keep being added, too,” she says. “I also think that it is a nice, uplifting thing coming into the darkest day of the year to go see some short stories and connecting over them. Obviously, I’m looking at making that big feature friendship comedy, too.”
Admit it, most of us are probably home marathoning whole seasons of TV series on Netflix at this time of year anyway. Why not take in something original at the Shortest Day?