New Zealand’s Academy Award-accredited short film festival Show Me Shorts is now playing all over the country. It’s a festival that’s been gaining yearly momentum, having its Opening Night at The Mighty Civic in Auckland.
You’re gonna want to be one of those cool people who knew about this gem of a festival before it becomes too popular for its own good. With seven hand-picked and curated sessions of quality short films from NZ and abroad, there’s something here for everyone.
Liam had a chat with festival director Gina Dellabarca about the under-appreciated medium and why this festival should excite you.
The appeal of seeing short films in cinema may be lost to some – those who feel they can just watch any short film they want on the internet. But how would you counteract that argument?
All our films are the best – they’re high quality ones. So you’re not getting the full experience if you see them at home – even in your home cinema with your fancy projector – you’re still not seeing them in that environment. Plus, our screenings are full of people who love movies, so you get that buzz of sharing that experience.
But it’s not just for people who love films. It’s one of those unique experiences that you can bring a casual movie-goer to, because everyone picks their favourites.
That’s one of the key things that we do with our programming: making the films really accessible. We don’t program any art wank.
THAAAAAAAAAAAAANK YOU!
It’s not just made up of intellectual films that are all dark and depressing. There’s heaps of comedy, there’s heaps of laughs, there’s heaps of animation. We even have a whole session – the My Generation session – which is just for kids and families. Other people can watch it as well but, it’s all unrestricted films.
Check out the whole line-up for ‘My Generation’
One of my favourites in there is a film called, Vigia which means, ‘lookout’. It’s an animated film about bees, narrated by the film-maker’s grandfather who’s telling him – “You should make a film about bees, and why they’re important.” And like, “Here’s how I think the story should go.” He records his grandfather’s voice saying, “And then this happens,” and then he animates it – it’s so good.
[Vigia (Lookout) recently won a Show Me Shorts award for Best International Film]
There was one like that last year, as well – ‘Mudcrab’.
Yeah. Mudcrab‘s hilarious. There’s a new film by those film-makers in our program this year called Condom, about a Dad and his son who are playing at the park, and the little boy finds a used condom in the park. So his Dad has to give him ‘the birds and the bees’ talk. It’s so funny.
Speaking of animated films, there’s one I actually saw at the film festival from New Zealand called ‘In The Rubbish Tin’. Which is not your average animated film at all.
Oh shit, no.
Which is great because I love seeing animation taken in a serious context. With the hundreds of submissions from New Zealand film-makers you get every year, how many are animated films?
Not that many. The Media Design School make a lot of partial-animated or animations. The people who made In The Rubbish Tin are the Simmons Brothers, the animation company. They’ve made some that have been in our program over the years. But, we don’t get that many from New Zealand. And we love animations, but there’s so much time and expense that goes into making animated films. I guess people just don’t have the time and the budget to make them.
Who’s the best person to bring along to the screening ‘Art Will Save The World’?
Bring your Mum, or a date. Art Will Save The World is about using arts and crafts to lift yourself out of a dark place. Arts and crafts are typically a Mum thing. They’re also kind of hipsterish and cool right now.
And definitely not art wank?
It’s definitely not art wank. There are a couple of romances in this section to which I really like. So it’s a good date movie session.
Check out the whole line-up for ‘Art Will Save the World’
Speaking of romance, who should I bring to the screening titled ‘Bromance’?
Bring your friends who aren’t big, massive, movie buffs, to that session. That session is full of comedies. Bring the people who you wouldn’t normally find at some arty film at the festival. If you haven’t had a laugh for a while, that’s the go-to one.
Check out the whole line-up for ‘Bromance’
Are there many laughs in In ‘The Neighbourhood’?
There are some. The Kiwi film, Whisker, is in that session which is about a homeless guy who enters a beard-growing contest so he can win the meat pack to feed his dog. It’s real adorable, but he doesn’t have a beard.
So who should I bring to ‘In The Neighbourhood’, other than homeless Joe?
Bring your movie buff friends, because that’s got some really visually interesting and cool concepts. It’s also got our Chinese film, Home, for which the film-makers come out from China because we’ve got the international premiere which is really exciting.
Check out the whole line-up for ‘In the Neighbourhood’
What about ‘Listen Up’? Who should I bring to that?
Listen Up‘s a real mixture. You should bring people who are looking for diversity – because this session is representative of the wide variety of films out there. It’s got some light comedies, as well as some really sweet, sad and soulful films that remind you of the fragility of the human condition and the wonder of people helping each other and coming together. If you’re looking to find out more about films, this is a great selection.
Check out the whole line-up for ‘Listen Up’
‘Time Travellers’. I’m pretty sure I know exactly who to bring to this session but who would you bring?
Anyone who loves sci-fi, basically. These are all films that look visually beautiful up on a screen.
It’d be a good session to see before ‘Interstellar’.
Yeah, it would. It would be a great accompaniment to that.
Maybe not after ‘Interstellar’ though. That movie goes on for like seven hours – you’re going to be exhausted.
I know, right? All the sessions also have a music video in them too, which is really cool.
And you found a Time Travelling music video too?
Yeah. The music video for that is Glare, by Sheep, Dog, and, Wolf which is amazing. It’s super cinematic. It’s about this guy running away from the sun, and it’s filmed in the outback. It’s the kind of thing that’s made to see on a cinema screen.
[Glare recently won a Show Me Shorts award for Best Music Video]
Check out the whole line-up for ‘Time Travellers’
If I have too many friends and I can’t decide on one genre, I’m going to pick ‘Highlights’, right?
Yeah, totally. Highlights has mass general appeal – there’s something for everyone.
Check out the whole line-up for ‘Highlights’
Time for the hard question: what is your personal favourite film from the Show Me Shorts line-up?
That’s a mean question; it’s really mean. At the moment, I’m going to say my favourite is Ghost Train – a horror from Ireland and Finland. It’s about a group of boys who sneaked into the ghost train, and one of them went missing. Now the rest of them are men, and they’re meeting up to remember their friend who they lost. It’s creepy as hell, and it will scare the crap out of anyone.
For more info on the ‘Show Me Shorts’ film festival, visit the official site.
