The Last Walk (Jordan Baseman)

On January 6, short films become the capital’s main attraction as the London Short Film Festival returns to the city’s cinemas and some more inventive settings like the University Tent at the Occupy London Stock Exchange Camp. Now in its ninth edition, LSFF continues to offer an ambitious and winningly broad programme with DIY work by emerging talents providing the perfect counterpoint to its industry events and comprehensive retrospectives of more acclaimed and established filmmakers.

The ICA’s Lo-Budget Mayhem screening promises to be an anarchic assortment with an eccentric hand-drawn animation of Hulk Hogan (Peter Millard’s Hogan), an excruciatingly awkward tale of public transport (Naren Wilks’s Journey on a Bus) and a very strange story of motherhood (Matilda Myszka’s Baby Meat). LSFF’s delight in such offbeat offerings will also be in evidence at the Midnight Movies Nightcap event and Salon des Refusés, a specially curated selection of films that did not make it into this year’s LSFF programme. It’s a fun and original idea that should raise interesting questions about what makes a ‘successful’ festival film.

As with previous editions of LSFF, this year’s programme emphasises the sensory experience of watching films. There are several events dedicated to the interaction between music and cinema and various festival strands that present films selected solely on the strength of their cinematography. Leftfield and Luscious, in particular, promises strong work, such as Jordan Baseman’s The Last Walk, which sets a compelling spoken narrative to meditative abstract visuals. The medium of analogue film is also to be celebrated with showcases of work on 16mm and 35mm film. At the Hackney Picturehouse Attic, Suitcase Cinema will present a selection of Cold War archive footage and Screen Bandita will gather together junkshop and attic finds of discarded, forgotten reels.

London itself is another focus of the 2012 festival with two screenings organised in association with the Museum of London in the Docklands: My Community will present a selection of shorts by young urban filmmakers; and London Lives will explore life in the capital through a varied programme of new works. In the documentary strand, another view of urban life is expressed through Hackney Lullabies, an award-winning short by Japanese filmmaker Kyoko Miyake. The film explores the shared experience of immigrant mothers living in Hackney and keeping their original cultures alive by singing lullabies to their young children. The diversity of voices presented in this warm and thoughtful film is mirrored in the programming of the festival itself. Looking through this year’s calendar of events, it is clear that LSFF aims to present a broad social spectrum as well as a wide aesthetic range. The Amnesty Human Rights Action Centre has organised an event to discuss disability in film while the Not the Skin I Live In strand celebrates Black and Asian stories on film. Female filmmakers are honoured with a dedicated festival strand (which includes an excellent, serious, yet witty call to arms about Nigerian women, Radio Amina) and the special event Dirty Diaries, a showcase of feminist porn films from Swedish filmmakers. This attempt to explore and represent all sorts of subjects and filmmakers makes for a lively and exciting programme of events. LSFF looks set to continue the success of previous years, keeping London audiences engaged and entertained.

Eleanor McKeown

Art by Chance

ART BY CHANCE is the brand new Ultra Short Film Festival that will be aired in May 2011 all around the world for the third time. Unexpectedly find films in non-theatrical venues in 20+ countries and 200+ cities around the world on 20.000+ digital screens located in public transport hubs as well as shopping centres, airports, public sqaures and university campuses.

ART BY CHANCE also takes place in other film festivals and summer festivals as a program rest of the year.

ART BY CHANCE is opens to films of all kinds; fiction, animation, documentary and video art with the exception of training and advertising films. Enthusiastic and creative international filmmakers will prepare 30 second-long films on ‘Change’. Participants can submit online at www.artbychance.org. Deadline 8 April 2011.

ART BY CHANCE jury members are Walt Disney Producer Don Hahn; Executive Director of ARTE France Cinéma Michel Reilac; Founder and Director of British Independent Film Awards Johanna Von Fischer

ART BY CHANCE allows filmmakers to share their work with a large audience, the largest audience ever reached by a short film festival. Viewers around the world will have the opportunity to watch the best festival movies free of charge over the course of their day. Reaching such a vast audience is only possible by taking films out of cinemas and screening them in public places where urban dwellers can easily see them.

ART BY CHANCE 2011-Call for submission! from ART BY CHANCE on Vimeo.

Who Killed Brown Owl

The film series Civic Life by Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy (aka Desperate Optimists) will screen at the Renoir Cinema in London on January 31 before going on tour throughout the UK, with the directors in attendance for Q&As.

Lawlor and Molloy starting working on the Civic Life series of short films in 2003, making the films in collaboration with local residents and communities, with a particular interest in the relationships between these communities and their environments. The Civic Life touring programme is a newly edited feature-length programme of all the films in the series from 2003 through to this year’s Tiong Bahru, shot in Singapore. One of the Civic Life shorts, Joy, developed into the feature film Helen.

Listen to the podcast of Alex Fitch’s interview with Christine Molloy on Helen.

Salon des Refuses

We like the sound of the Salon des Refusés, which only screens short films that have been rejected by other film festivals and describes itself as ‘a new experiment in film curation. The Salon celebrates the diversity of the short film format and offers an alternative space for its exhibition, as a challenge to the standard festival shorts programme.’

Salon des Refusés will have its launch on Sunday 21 November, 17:30, Shortwave Independent Cinema (Bermondsey, London).

Film Running Order

1. Second Cousins Once Removed dir. Eliza Hitman – USA – 10m30 – Fiction.
A tender and beautiful coming-of-age tale about two very different young girls, both teetering on the brink of puberty.

2. Moving America dir. Rob Munday – UK – 8m27 – Documentary
A lyrical road trip across America, with footage shot partly in **Super-8 and woven together by beat-style observations and reminiscences.

3. At Home With the Ants, dir. Jill Kennedy – New Zealand – 9m45 – Experimental Animation
An exploration of taxonomy and nomenclature, this innovative cut-out animation resembles a peepshow seen through a biological kaleidoscope.

4. A Grumpy Old Man, dir. Rachel Tracy – UK – 7m30 – Documentary
A sensitive and at times comic portrait of a self-confessed curmudgeon, who tells us about his life, his and his many clocks.

5. Vendetta, dir. Leo deHaan – UK – 14m59 – Fiction
A gripping story of lust, regret and vengeance set in London’s seedy back streets and seedier back rooms.

6. A Hundred and Forty Suns, dir. Jonathan Blair – UK – 3m50 – Experimental Animation
A psychedelic, experimental romp through light and sound, based on a poem by the Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

7. Marigolds, dir Stephanie Zari – UK – 16m28 – Fiction
A terse sexual thriller about a mother’s all-consuming love for her grown-up son.

8. Ho! Terrible Exteriors, dir. Lior Shamriz – Israel – 26m55 – Experimental Fiction
Lovers in the city and the countryside discover that their surroundings are not as innocent as they first appear in this surreal and funny, but ultimately horrifying tale.

Straight 8 2010 is calling for entries now, it’s the same rule as before: you get one roll of super 8, no editing, and if it’s selected you get to see your film for the first time at cannes or at one of their other screenings throughout 2010 – Benicassim, Rushes Soho Shorts, Raindance. Deadline is April 6.

The straight 8 2010 launch party screening is at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton at 9pm, Thursday 18 February. Tickets £1 from straight8.net.

If you need inspiration, watch Springlove, one of our favourite straight 8 films of 2008:

ART BY CHANCE present urban dwellers with stimulating content thus colouring the time slices that are usually considered dead.

UNIQUE SHORT FILM FORM AS WELL AS THE SCREENING

ART BY CHANCE opens to movies of all kinds; fiction, animation, documentary and video art with the exception of training and advertising films. Enthusiastic and creative international film makers will be preparing 30 seconds long, films*, on “Time”.  Participants also submit online from  www.artbychance.org

DEADLINE: Friday 26 March

IN THE SUMMER OF 2009 MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE CAUGHT BY A SHORT FILM
Last year festival aired May-June-July 2009 in 13 countries and in over 70 cities around the world for the first time and was viewed by more than 1 billion people worldwide.

ALL THE WORLD’S WAITING TO SEE YOUR SHORT FILM!

ART BY CHANCE is currently partnering with many digital advertising network operators throughout the world. With these partnerships ART BY CHANCE realize a revolutionary event allowing art to meet millions of people around the world. The best festival entries will be selected by an international jury and will be screened. ART BY CHANCE films took place on 7907 screens in 20 different networks.

LARGEST AUDIENCE EVER REACHED BY A PUBLIC ART EVENT

ART BY CHANCE is going to allow film makers to share their work with a large audience. Viewers around the world will have the opportunity to watch the best festival movies free of charge and within the course of their daily routine. This is the largest audience ever reached by a short film festival. Reaching so many people can only be possible by taking the screenings outside the theatres where the urban people can see it without an effort.

www.artbychance.org