I love short films. To me, the brevity of short films often leads to tighter storytelling, and they tend to take artistic risks I don’t see in feature films. For example, I had the privelege of attending the Sundance film fest 2 years ago, and I saw this wonderful animated short called Ryan – a very impressionistic exploration of an artist’s fear of failure (which I think is really fear of creative power…a great quote I saw recently said we’re not afraid of failure, we’re afraid of success.) The animation style is incredibly expressive and evocative. I’m not saying an animated feature couldn’t accomplish that – just that I haven’t seen one that does, and on measure, I tend to walk away from short films feeling like I’ve just witnessed a very personal labor of love.
Which is all my way of leading up to saying: check out the DC Short Film Festival, coming up the weekend of September 14-17. 112 of the films they’re screening are local – those of you who dream about filmmaking but think it’s out of reach because you live in DC, take note. In another shout-out to the local creative community, the trophies awarded at the end of the festival are custom-designed by the Washington Glass School.
Learn more about the festival, and get a detailed schedule of screenings, at www.dcshorts.com.