Another Flickerfest has come by for another year and it is a yet another reminder of how essential short films are to the world of cinema. Most folks tend to go to the cinemas for feature films, with the medium of the short film confined to festivals like this one where a great selection of these short, yet effective stories and experiments can be told.
Across four nights, 35 short films were screened at the Camelot Outdoor cinema, the first night dedicated to the local efforts made by Aussies, the next two nights for the best shorts from around the world, with the last night solely for the short comedies. I caught the second night, watching the first batch of international shorts, and was impressed by the variety of the different nations that had their films shown. There were the shorts Battalion to my Beat (Algeria, US) and Nocturne in Black (US) that are set in impoverished areas of the world, but focus on the humanity in the lives of its characters who must preserve it at any cost.
There were also the shorts from Europe, like Risky Game (Germany) a sexy short film revolving around a cat-and-mouse situation in the classroom, the stunning sci-fi Mars IV (France) which used its visual effects to great and creative effect, and the Oscar-nominated Timecode (Spain) a cute little film set in a carpark complex that is mostly seen from the security footage. Coming from America was the best thriller of the night, Cul-De-Sac (US), a rather creepy film made even more unnerving by its ambiguity due to its perspective from the oblivious child.
As great as these films were, my personal favourites happened to be the two animated ones. The Head Vanishes (Canada, France), a whimsical little oddity that is sure to charm any audience member, and OS Love (Switzerland), the most experimental of the lot, made up of real-life composites edited together into a bizarre and unique comment on computer living.
This was a great night full of wonderful and varied tales from the world, and I’m sure it was the same for the other three nights. Keep your eyes peeled for next year’s Flickerfest, as it’s likely you could be watching the first steps of one of the next big names in the cinema world.
DAVID MORGAN-BROWN
