Short Slot 7

Friday:  1:30 pm –  Bushel & Peck’s
Saturday: 9:00 pm – Wilson Theater
Sunday: 5:00 pm – La Casa Grande

Goodbye, Cruel World

Category: Short Film
Country: Australia
Language: English
Rating: R
Runtime: 15
Director: Adrian McFarlane
Producer: Jonathon Miller

George stands at the edge of a tall building, ready to throw himself off when he is interrupted by a quirky young woman, Tilda. Unable to ‘go while someone else is watching’ George storms off but can’t shake Tilda who won’t jump to her death because she is scared of heights. They munch a big bag of chips together, the adrenaline rush feeding their appetites and after Tilda confesses her previous failed suicide attempts (and big meals that followed), they decide to find a fantastic way to commit suicide together, eventually settling on pills by candlelight. As they swill whiskey and pills, passing out together, George tells Tilda that they could be best friends…in the next life.

George awakes in a hospital bed, alone. He returns to the scene of their suicide to find a big mess…an empty chip packet…and Tilda. He asks what happens and she describes how she saved his life at the last moment after she realised they were friends and that ‘friends don’t let each other kill themselves’. George exclaims how unfair that is.

George and Tilda return to the rooftop, standing on the edge again. Tilda goads him but he’s not ready, not yet. Suddenly he gets the rush and they back away from the edge towards an overflowing picnic which they tear into together, happy and alive.

Cherry Waves

Category: Short Film
Country: USA
Language: English
Rating: R
Runtime: 15
Director: Carey Williams
Producer: Brad Clements, Christina Jo’Leigh, Michael Dallatorre
Website:  Cherry  Waves Film

Angie Adams, a hardened yet spiritual street fighter faces her biggest challenge of whether to continue living her life for others or finally for herself and the woman she loves.

World for Raul

Category: Short Film
Country: Mexico,Switzerland,U S A
Language: English
Rating: PG-15
Runtime: 15
Director: Mauro Mueller
Producer: Mauro Mueller

When thirteen-year-old Raul is asked to entertain the local landowner’s son, a game of power and pride starts between the two boys.

Trimbelten

Category: Short Film
Country: Germany
Language: 
Rating: R
Runtime: 15
Director: Sebastian Kuehn
Producer: Sebastian Kuehn

After years spent in his self-imposed exile, the broken ex-cop TRIMBELTEN embarks on his last journey. This journey has only one purpose: Revenge for his daughters death. But on his way Trimbelten teams up with a young outcast named Stina. It seems like she is able to distract him from his plan. There is something about that girl that reminds Trimbelten of his daughter.

Landscape

Category: Short Film
Country: France
Language: 
Rating: G
Runtime: 11
Director: Anabela Costa
Producer: Anabela Costa
Website:  Landscape

Landscape, is what can be seen, and not in physical terms but as an outward expression of human perception: ‘a landscape is a cultural image, a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolizing surroundings’, so it will always be a personal take over an area of land, of human elements buildings or structures with a cultural and aesthetic dimension.

Stalled

Category: Short Film
Country: Canada,New Zealand,Switzerland
Language: English
Rating: PG-15
Runtime: 16
Director: Shannon Kohli
Producer: Meghan Gardiner

The entire script for ?Stalled? was pieced together solely using graffiti quotes found in washroom stalls across the North America. Not one single word was added to the script. The writer of this piece, Meghan Gardiner, came up with the idea after noticing a debate on abortion in a Toronto women?s washroom. The honestly and outrage scrawled across this piece of linoleum was shocking. Meghan soon discovered that women everywhere were divulging their personal secrets on bathroom stall walls, some even turning into long conversations with strangers. Meghan spent almost three years gathering over eight hundred quotes from across the continent. The content ranges from funny to poignant to disturbing to heart breaking. After collecting as many of these quotes as she could, Meghan categorized them into themes, and had more than enough material on eating disorders, drug addiction, unwanted pregnancy, and bullying among other compelling themes. Those categories were then pieced together into text, and four distinct characters were born (again, ONLY using graffiti. No added or edited material whatsoever).

We meet these four characters through the character of THE JANITOR, an elderly woman in her seventies who has had the same job for most of her adult life. She is fatigued however and looks older than her seventy years, as if something about cleaning these stalls drains her. As we watch her enter the first stall, we realize that when cleaning the stalls of their graffiti, she becomes the woman inside who wrote the words. She takes on their life, their circumstances and their struggle. Each character speaks to the trials and tribulations of their individual struggle with heartbreaking honesty. After all, someone somewhere actually felt the need to write these words on a wall.

Shannon Kohli directed and directed photography on ?Stalled?. Meghan played all of the characters, showing that not only could any one of these women be one of us, but in a way, we are all one woman. Each character and stall is set in a different era, not only for aesthetic and creative reasons, but also to show that the issues addressed in this film have been plaguing women for decades. Although Stalled was shot in the same bathroom, each stall was transformed with lighting, camera style and production design to suit each character?s environment. Sound design and music composition will play an important role in completing the transformation. Meghan?s appearance for each character was drastically altered with the help of special character makeup, prosthetics, color contacts, wardrobe and hair.