Worldwide Short Film Festival 2009 - Wrap Up

The Worldwide Short Film Festival 2009 has come and gone and we are now left with the memories of a lot of films! One thing I noticed this year, in particular with the Opening Night Award Winning program is a sense of 'it will be okay'. It feels like recently we have gone through a long period of a long period of dark and gritty = good, it was nice to see films where the whatever happened turned out fine. They didn't die, get attacked, fall, etc... it was just .. fine. It wasn't the case for everything of course but it's was a refreshing change of pace and I hope to see more of it!

Favourite Fiction:
Cold and Dry / Tørt og kjølig and Sand / Zand

Artistic Works of Wonder:
Next Floor and The Survivor of the Hippocampus / Le rescapé de l'hippocampe

Favourite Animated:
Skhizein

Giggle-fest:
Tolibu Dibu Dauchyu

The wacky and the bizarre:
Cutecutecute

Favourite Program:
Official Selection 11: Tech-Neurological

Most Enthusiastic Crowd:
Although Opening Night was lively, the crowd during the Day 1 screening of Official Selection 1: The Edge of Reason was enthusiastic and very full. Front row-filled out full. That's impressive.

The films that caught my heart:
Paul Rondin Is... Paul Rondin / Paul Rondin est... Paul Rondin and Monday Before Thanksgiving

Themes:
Challenging preconceptions, Embracing Weirdness

Still has me thinking:
Alter Ego, after seeing this film I had a really great discussion with my sister about it that went on for ages! It really made me think, the writing was fabulous and the the performances were spot on.

Sharing is good! Some Shorts are Available online:
Black Dog's Progress, The (3 min 15s)
Civilian (4 min 01s)
Crap / Simonac (10 min 23s)
Cutecutecute (1 minute)
The Website is Down: Sales Guy Vs. Web Dude (10 min 23s)

The Worldwide Short Film Festival ran from June 16-21, 2009 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.