A scene from Terminus

OFFICIAL SELECTION 2:
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
June 11, 4pm, Cumberland; June 14, 4pm, Cumberland.
Terminus (****) doesn’t wear its retro-’70s aesthetic on its sleeve so much as under its skin. Trevor Cawood’s much-admired short evokes David Cronenberg’s tax-shelter salad days in its look and also its dread-laden atmosphere. It’s a clinical account of a corporate drone trying to fend off the impassive advances of a maybe-imaginary concrete pal; a lot of Hollywood directors would kill (or at least maim) to be able to integrate digital effects as seamlessly as FX veteran Cawood does here. And there’s another very strong entry in this program: Claudine Natkin’s Tomboy (****), a death-tinged childhood idyll containing potent trace elements of Lynne Ramsay’s remarkable Ratcatcher. AN

HOLD ME, THRILL ME, KISS ME, KILL ME
June 11, 7pm, Cumberland; June 14, 2pm, Cumberland.
Apparently people do enough crazy things for love to warrant an entire selection of short films dedicated to the subject. Cursing ex-lovers is one example, as in Kelly Harms’ Cursing Hanley (***), about a man who experiences an endless barrage of bad luck after having a hex placed on him by an ex-fiancée. Car tickets, job loss, Satanism — nothing is off limits in this charming short. Ben Steiger Levine and Joe Cobden’s Sigh (**) examines how ordinary people are willing to spontaneously dance in supermarkets because they see someone they find attractive. The film is sweet enough, if disposable. Oddly, the best short in the group has nothing to do with the theme. It’s a Norwegian documentary entitled Mr. Mustache (****) about moustaches and the people who love them. Though the subject matter is simple, the interviewees are so eccentric, the facial hair so ridiculous and the filmmakers so inventive, it’s endlessly entertaining. PB

SLAP ’N’ TICKLE
June 11, 9:30pm, Cumberland; June 14, 10:30pm, Cumberland.
If you’re one of those special people who refuse to watch short films unless they’re about sex, don’t worry — this section has been compiled just for you. Ever wondered what stick figures having sex looks like? Wade Vroom’s T-Sex (***) will uncover the mystery. Vroom also has a second film entitled Daddy Where Does Chocolate Milk Come From? (***) and both use the same surrealist humour and crude animation style of Don Hertzfeldt, but with less philosophical wit and more vulgarity. Further sexual animated fun can be found in The Adventures of Baxter & McGuire (***) an entertaining, if slight, CGI cartoon about a pair of wisecracking testicles. The live-action shorts are a mixed bag, but the best is Love Is Love (***) a comedic examination of a world where heterosexuality is considered abnormal that benefits from cameos by Margaret Cho and Jane Lynch. The movie doesn’t stretch much beyond that single joke, but the beauty of the short format is that it doesn’t have to. PB

TEENLAND
June 12, 4pm, Cumberland; June 13, 9:15pm, Cumberland.
There are few subjects more popular amongst filmmakers than the pain and humiliation of adolescence, so it shouldn’t be particularly surprising that the Teenland program would boast some of the most accomplished shorts in the fest. Case in point is 1977 (****) a fascinating, surreal animated short that presents a highly personal journey from childhood to adulthood through a series of detached memories and pop culture references. It’s both endlessly inventive and surprisingly poignant. Abstract nostalgia is also the focus of My Grandmother Beijing (***) a bizarrely beautiful claymation short about the importance of wrinkles in the elderly. Fans of quirky and embarrassing humour should also enjoy Aquarium (****) a Sundance favourite heavily influenced by Wes Anderson and Todd Solondz that mines laughs out of teenage discomfort; the movie just stops rather than reaching a conclusion. PB

OFFICIAL SELECTION 7:
THIS SPORTING LIFE
Thurs June 12, 4:30pm, Cumberland; June 14, 9:15pm, Cumberland.
German director Daniel Burkhardt contributes two neatly conceived (and not even tangentially sports-related) three-minute long experimental shorts to this sports-themed program; CTG Keeps Cool (****) slices its central images of a cargo ship almost past the point of recognition, while Waving adopts a static — but still tricked-up — perspective of two men playing a game with an incoming tide. The narrative standout is either Grimur Hakonarson’s well-crafted Wrestling (***) which puts a Brokeback twist on Iceland’s back-breaking national sport, or Pierre-Antoine Fournier’s mildly Dardenne-ish Deracine (***), an intimately shot story of a teenaged boy who uses skateboarding to put some distance between himself and his alcoholic father. AN

JAPANESE SPOTLIGHT:
GENIUS PARTY
June 12, 7:15pm, Varsity.
What would a film festival be without a celebration of Japanimation? This year, the fest has chosen to honour Studio4ºC. Its Deathtic 4 (***) is a morbidly funny exercise in the grotesque. Drawn in an odd 3-D comic book style, the short lacks narrative clarity, but presents a unique world that is light-hearted and playful. Director Shinichiro Watanabe (the mastermind behind Cowboy Bebop) contributes Baby Blue (****), a surprisingly quiet and introspective short about unrequited love and painful nostalgia. While much of the movie eschews the unpredictable energy that defines Watanabe’s best work, it has a surprising emotional resonance. Hideki Futamura’s philosophical Limit Cycle (***) attempts to unravel complex connections in the universe. And while the nature of the material makes a conclusion impossible, the concepts are fascinating and the layered, lyrical animation offers stunning eye candy. Not exactly for the Pokémon fans, but an intriguing piece of cinema for any serious viewer. PB

CELEBRITY SHORTS
June 12, 7:30pm, Cumberland; June 14, 8:30pm Cumberland.
Boomtown Rats fans, rejoice: Donald Rice’s I Am Bob (****) culminates in a glorious group singalong of “I Don’t Like Mondays,” led in tandem by a Bob Geldof impersonator and the genuine article. The latter has become stranded at a celebrity lookalike convention, and while you get no points for predicting what happens, Sir Bob’s willingness to take several litres of piss out of his public persona yields some chuckles. But he’s got nothing on Bill Murray, who appears as himself in FCU: Fact Checkers Unit (**) and, in the space of an improvised singalong to “Chopsticks,” largely redeems this otherwise dire little farce. AN

WATCH WHAT YOU EAT
June 13, 4:30pm, Cumberland; June 14, 7:30pm, Cumberland.
This series of shorts based on food is surprisingly good (must… resist… “appetizing” pun) considering the limited subject matter. Key Lime Pie (****) is a short and sweet slice of animated noir about a man whose obsession with the green seductress dessert leads to insanity and death. Director Trevor Jimenez wears his Bill Plympton and Tim Burton influences openly but has a unique comic voice that makes the film his own. Roastbeef  (***) is a charming dialogue-free effort that transforms the sounds of a butcher processing meat into a bizarre musical number similar to the transitional music moments in Dancer in the Dark. It’s a fun, visually compelling and well-produced effort by directors François Bégin and Miryam Bouchard, but more of a music video than a film. Alex Perez’s The Frozen City (***) is a funny documentary about Winnipeg’s status as the Slurpee capital of the world. Twenty minutes of hearing people describe their love of Slurpees might strain a few attention spans, but it’s entertaining enough. PB

MIDNIGHT MANIA: CREEPY
June 13, 11:59pm, Cumberland.
The proverbial damsel becomes a source of distress in French director David Morley’s gory nocturne Bitten (****). There’s not much more to this one than special effects and “boo!” moments, but the effects are sharply realized and the “boo!” moments are precision-tooled. It’s also admirably straightforward, unlike Robert Cosnahan’s Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre! (**), which places its scares in scare quotes: the basic reversal — city kids come to the woods to prey on hillbillies — is witty, as is a throwaway Bush bash (the city kids also belong to a university secret society) but the genre-savvy nudging gets tiresome as the running time approaches 20 minutes. AN

SCENE NOT HERD:
MUSIC VIDEOS
June 13, 7pm and 9:30pm, Royal.
Most of the artists selected for this music video program tend towards the hipsterish (Menomena, Deerhoof, Vampire Weekend) but it’s the seriously uncool lads in Muse who feature in the best selection: the promo for their Thom-Yorke-on-steroids single “Invincible” (****) imagines Earth’s history as a Disneyland tunnel ride, charting civilization’s development into the present and the future. (Heads up: there are giant robot mice on the horizon. Ack!) Kudos also to the New Pornographers for the Challengers double shot of “Myriad Harbor” (****) — a smoothly animated trifle in which the band chirp harmonies from within the tangled mass of Dan Bejar’s hair — and the title track (****), which finds Neko Case sipping on soda while two young lovers take their time through a gooey Technicolor smooch. AN

SCI FI: OUT THERE
June 13, 9:30pm, Cumberland; June 15, 9:15pm, Cumberland.
A homemade theremin proves key to repelling a Martian invasion in the agreeably wacky (and strenuously tacky) Martians Go Home! (****), which seems to have been made by a Spanish kid brought up on Grade-Z North American crap. Lo-fi contraptions also figure prominently in Bo Price’s consistently amusing Primitive Technology (*****). This story of three vaguely douchey amateur inventors — and a ridiculously gifted new recruit — shuffles smartly between solid conceptual jokes (i.e., a telescope that looks 45 seconds into the future) and pause-giving nonsequiturs. Plus, people keep getting maced in the face. AN

MIDNIGHT MANIA: FREAKY
June 14, 11:59pm, Cumberland.
Colin Cunningham’s Centigrade (****) suggests Duel if Dennis Weaver had been trapped inside the evil truck; its mostly dialogue-free story of an abusive father who becomes a prisoner in his own filthy — and apparently sentient — motor home works a swell Twilight Zone groove (even if the ending is lifted from the classic Italian short La Cabina). I have no points of reference whatsoever for Calvin Lee Reader’s authentically trippy The Rambler (***), which concerns a laconic drifter who (of course) gets into the wrong car. The ensuing parade of grotesqueries, including a girl who literally pukes her guts out, is enough to upset the hardiest constitution (and maybe blow the odd mind, to boot). AN

OH! CANADA:
CANADIAN COMEDY SHORTS
June 14, 6:30pm, Cumberland.
Fond memories of rubbing Montreal’s 1993 Stanley Cup victory in the faces of my Leafs-loving friends compel me to give Mark Montefiore’s Back in 93 (***) the benefit of the doubt: this inverted homage to Roch Carrier’s classic children’s story The Hockey Sweater — narrated by George Stroumboulopoulos — is several shades too broad (and atrociously scored) but possessed of a basic sweetness. And we get to see a vintage Quebec Nordiques jersey, which is awesome. Mike Jackson’s noir parody The Bar (**) aims for Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker-style silliness and a couple of extra hard-boiled groaners hit the mark — a better ratio than almost anything else in this disappointing program. AN

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