As the digital age hems in the average American attention span, short films have become an immensely gratifying form of entertainment. A little over 10 minutes each, the short films of this year’s D.C. Shorts Film Festival allowed for a wildly entertaining celebration of the concise. The festival, the largest of its kind on the East Coast, ended this Sunday after featuring 145 films from 23 countries. It attracted hundreds of professional filmmakers and thousands more film enthusiasts to venues across the District
This Sunday I attended the “Best of D.C. Shorts,” a compilation of the best jury and audience selected shorts. Highlights included a comedy called, Cockatoo, in which a man hires the services of something akin to an emotional hooker for a bizarrely hilarious afternoon spent with a woman paid to play the part of his ex-girlfriend. On the other end of the spectrum, Paraíso tells the story of Mexican-immigrant window washers in Chicago. This film is beautifully shot, with dizzying vertical drops down the reflective faces of the tallest skyscrapers. As they propel down the faces of Chicago’s skyscrapers, the viewer realize that the their profession serves as a literal and figurative window into a more privileged way of life.Another standout is Good Karma $1, a documentary in which a former advertising executive finds inspiration in the cardboard signs held by homeless men and women. While collaborating with the homeless to improve their message, he ultimately discovers that the most affecting signs are the most authentic.: “We never thought it would come to this.”
The Capital Buzz is a light-hearted exposé of D.C.’s small but tenacious bee-keeping community. The local film is filled with familiar shots of Georgetown, with one bee-keeping enthusiast living at what appears to be 3310 Prospect St. He keeps several hives installed on his roof–so, West Georgetown, “bee” warned.
The last show of the night, Guang, tells the story of a musically gifted young man whose relationship with his brother is complicated by his autism. The film’s disarmingly genuine portrayal is dedicated to director Shio Chuan Quek’s own autistic brother.
Sitting through a 90 minute short film set is like riding an emotional roller coaster without a minimum emotional maturity requirement. At regular ten-minute intervals, audience members are driven to the pinnacle of happiness, hit a hard turn of hilarity and are then plunged into despair. A fantastic ride combining the best of depth and brevity, the films featured at D.C. Shorts make for a worthwhile ticket.
