The Prague Post
July 4th, 2008
Reader's SurveyNEW     Endowment Fund     Book of Lists ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Night & Day

Small stuff

The Manhattan Short Film Festival is back
Cinema Review | Search restaurants | Archives

By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 26th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Dressed to thrill. James Lomas in King Ponce, one of the films in this international evening of short films.
COURTESY PHOTO
A needed pilot program. Diego Quemada-Diez, cameraman for The Constant Gardener, provides a film.
The Manhattan Short Film Festival

When: Sept. 28–30
Where: Karavan Seraj (Masarykovo nábř. 22) and Skutečnost (Francouzská 76)
Admission: 60 Kč
All screenings begin at 9 p.m. For more information: www.MSfilmfest.com or
zizkovfilmklub.blogspot.com

From its humble beginnings as a downtown version of a drive-in movie, the Manhattan Short Film Festival has done an impressive job of taking over the world in its 10 years of existence.
Its tagline, “One World, One Week, One Festival,” is fairly accurate, as the festival’s films will enjoy being simultaneously screened in Hamburg, Rome, Moscow, London, Kiev, Buenos Aires, Calgary, Mexico City and, back in the festival’s birthplace, Union Square Park in New York City.
The festival’s Prague backers this year will be the relatively new Žižkov Film Klub, a cineastes’ salon run by two Englishmen, Aidan Hughes and Rory Wilmer. The first two days of the three-day festival will take place at Karavan Seraj, while the closing Sunday-night screening, complete with wrap-up party, will be at Skutečnost.
As always, the international audience will have the final say on the best film from the 12 finalists, with results to be posted the week after the tri-continental event. The following is a thumbnail guide to some of this year’s most promising entries.
Clooney—Germany. Florian Ross, director. Using one of George Clooney’s lines in Out of Sight as a point of departure, this film explores the line in our lives between happenstance and destiny. A man will decide on how to spend his night by the flip of a coin. What will the ramifications be if it’s heads over tails?
I Want to Be a Pilot—Kenya. Diego Quemada-Diez. As one of the cameramen for The Constant Gardener, Quemada-Diez found himself getting to know some orphaned slum kids around where the film was being shot. His short film is based on interviews with some of the kids, who have interesting answers to his question, “What are your dreams?”
King Ponce—UK. Sam Donovan, director. This exploration of teenage masculinity follows the trials and tribulations of a young boy who loves ballroom dancing, then suddenly finds himself attending a rough, laddish school. The title role is played by young James Lomas, the Olivier Award–winning performer who originated Billy Elliot in the West End.
The Trainee—Singapore. Craig Rosenthal, director. It seems likely that next year’s film festival will finally move into Asia. So it’s fitting this year to have this small movie from Singapore. Here, customers take their lives in their own hands by entering a convenience store where the trainee cashier has just broken a nail.
Prestidigitador—Spain. Ugo Sanz, director. A schoolboy is found cheating, and a sadistic teacher dreams up a novel punishment for him.
One Hundredth of a Second—Canada. Susan Jacobson and Eric Boden, directors. In the festival’s shortest film (just over five minutes), a photojournalist finds her “objectivity” challenged when she sees a haunting picture of a young girl.
Cherries—UK. Tom Harper, director. A group of young boys receive a valuable civics lesson, one that just might spare them from willingly becoming cannon fodder for another Middle East misadventure.
I Met the Walrus—Canada. Josh Raskin, director, with animation from James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina. Perhaps the most intriguing of the films offered, I Met the Walrus is a short animated film that’s based on an interview with John Lennon in 1969 by a 14-year-old boy who had snuck into Lennon and Yoko Ono’s hotel room in Toronto during one of their famed “Bed-in for Peace” happenings. The 30-minute interview has been edited down to a crisp five minutes, and is accompanied by some potent animated images.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


survey banner


Other articles in Night & Day (26/09/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Book of Lists

Provokator
Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.