When days are short, watch short films
Winter Solstice gives life to Shortest Day free festival
Shorter attention spans are spawning memorable movies.
That’s how award-winning Toronto filmmaker and animator Sol Friedman sees it. His eight-minute film Bacon & God’s Wrath, a whimsical study of a 90-yearold Jewish woman weighing her decision to have her first taste of pork, is among 28 shorts screening in various locations during the free film series called The Shortest Day.
Started in France in 2011, The Shortest Day is now in 50 countries and is called a “celebration” of shorts, rather than a film fest.
The Canadian-made movies are bundled into four free programs: Dramas and Comedies; Kids; Family and Musical. They screen Friday to Monday at more than 80 venues across Canada, from shopping malls to theatres, leading up to Tuesday’s Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.
Go to theshortestday.ca for a list of programs, films and locations.
“This art form, which has always been on the periphery . . . is certainly having its moment,” said Friedman, 33. He blends action and animation in Bacon & God’s Wrath, along with a real pig’s head that has a “conversation” with Razie Brownstone about her musings on religion, family and why, with the help of some research on “the Google,” she’s ready to eat bacon.
Bacon & God’s Wrath is also having its moment. After screening at TIFF, it will be part of the Sundance Film Festival’s shorts program in January and was recently named one of Canada’s Top 10 short films for 2015. It will screen with the other shorts at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Jan.13 at 7 p.m.
Friedman said he wanted to make a short on the subject and needed somebody willing to “break this taboo.” He found it in Brownstone, a family friend.
It’s an exciting time to be a filmmaker, he said, a bit like the Wild West. “With the tools being what they are, there’s no excuse not to make a film if you’re so inclined.”
The shorts in the showcase are made using live action, stop-motion and animation techniques, and include Torill Kove’s Oscar-nominated Me and My Moulton, Cordell Barker’s If I Was God and Tamara Segura’s experimental short about music and memory, Song for Cuba.
Films from Toronto filmmakers include Call It Blue, directed by Ryerson University’s Julia Hendrickson, winner of Best Student Short at the Kerry (Ireland) Film Festival, and Amir Honarmand’s Be the Snow, about a pillow that runs away from home to explore the world.