This is a good thing because a) I like films and b) I have limited patience, so any movie lasting under six minutes is fine by me. The festival will show over 250 shorts from UK-based filmmakers over its ten-day run, with a mouth-watering selection of strands. If you can't find something in there to tickle your pickle then there's every chance you've died without realising it. There are also discussions, industry events, live events, installations, retrospectives and all that gubbins that people like at their film festivals.
I hauled my lazy ass to the Soho Curzon on Saturday to see the "Fucked Up Love" programme: nine films based on a romantic theme, but not in an Owen-Wilson-Kate-Hudson kind of way, thank Christ, more in an Isn't-Love-Simultaneously-Great-Rubbish-Unpredictable-And-Occasionally-Planet-Saving way.
In all honesty I expected a Watchable to Unwatchable ratio of about 2:7 but was delighted to get a Really Very Good to Perfectly Reasonable ratio of 6:3. It would be difficult to pick a favourite but Ian Hothersall's Edgar Wrightesque Once Upon A Time On Earth had aliens, robots and explosions (I'm easily pleased), Jack Herbert's Now Or Never was as packed with unlikely action as it was with stolen-pen-based LOLs and Joe Rosen's Blind Date had a hilarious script but would have benefited from a tripod in its early scenes.
Here's a trailer for a short you've already missed called In The Meadow; it was very good so I'm assuming everything else will be too.
Newsnight Review Corner: Lots of these films were made with the support of the UK Film Council, thereby proving its vital role in supporting new British filmmaking talent. Now that it's been murdered and dumped in a ditch and its work now has to be done by the BFI, will that support continue? Will it increase? Or is it all about to get even harder for struggling British directors? I don't know. I'm not Mark Lawson, am I?
