The Ganzfeld Procedure – Keith McCarthy
I love this.
The Ganzfeld Procedure is a technique used in the field of parapsychology to test for ESP. When two patients meet during this eponymous experiment something unexpected happens – they fall in love. Inside their minds! Featuring ‘Dog Days Are Over’ by Florence & The Machine.
La Vie D’un Chien (The Life of a Dog) – John Harden
A strange and touching tale of… bestiality… in a way.
Stylistically reminiscent of La Jetée.
Last Minutes with ODEN – Eliot Rausch
This is the most heartbreaking short film I have ever seen… If you’re a dog owner or lover this will probably leave you broken.
It’s the tale of Jason Wood’s last few moments with his dog ODEN… It’s the sharing of a moment so powerful and honest you can feel their sorrow deep within your soul.
Director of Photography: Luke Korver, Matt Taylor
Song: Big Red Machine / Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner
Signs – Patrick Hughes
A very touching love story… It will make you feel all lovely inside.
Honda Museum – Peter Thwaites
I know this isn’t a short film but it touches my heart every time I see it. It features Asimo, Honda’s amazingly anthropomorphic humanoid robot and was produced by Wieden + Kennedy in 2006. The beautiful music is by Goldmund.
12:01pm – Jonathan Heap
If you love time, you’ll love this.
Based on a novel by Richard A. Lupoff, 12:01pm is the story trapped in an hour of time, unable to escape despite his best attempts. This first adaptation of the story was nominated for an Academy Award and originally aired in 1990.
The story was later adapted into a feature under the title 12:01 which was released in 1993 alongside the cult classic Groundhog Day. The creators of 12:01 struggled in a battle of the law against the producers of Groundhog Day, believing they had stolen the 24 hour time loop premise but apparently gave up after 6 months of blood, sweat and tears.
YouTube video has recently been made private. This could have something to do with a festival rules or perhaps they are trying to push the DVD sales… I’m not sure. You can still watch the movie via Court 13 here (a slower download though):
http://www.court13.com/gloryatsea.mov
Glory at Sea – Benh Zeitlin
This is such a beautiful film… It has quite a slow pace put builds into a truly heartbreaking crescendo.
The music composed by Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin and features the song: That’s All, Goodnight, written by Osei Essed and performed by The Woes
Glory at Sea is available to buy at Court 13 along with their other productions.
Georges Méliès – A Trip to the Moon
A Trip to the Moon is very close to my heart for a number of reasons. It’s a short film about a group of astronomers that travel to the Moon, it’s one of the pioneers of early cinema, science fiction and and special effects and has been a huge inspiration to much of my work, most obviously in The Fool Looks at the Finger that Points to the Sky.
It’s arguably the earliest sci-fi movie ever made… Way back in 1902 before Star Wars had been invented, Méliès was using special effects to transport the audience into a world of fantasy. Using techniques developed by the Lumière brothers and Thomas Edison he created visions of space ships crashing into the Moon and exploding aliens that would have wowed audiences in a way that must have been similar to the bullet time scenes of The Matrix or the liquid metal T1000 from Terminator 2.
A Trip to the Moon has inspired many artists through the years and found it’s way into many areas of popular culture, the two that spring to mind are the amazing Smashing Pumpkins video for Tonight Tonight and the Moon from The Mighty Boosh. Unfortunately for Méliès it was Edison who made a fortune from the film by selling it to the American market and several years later his company went bankrupt and was bought by french movie company Pathé. To rub salt in the wound many of the other films he created were destroyed during World War I, apparently melted down to make army boots or recycled as new film. It wasn’t until 1932 that Méliès received proper recognition from the French arts community, the Cinema Society gave him a home in Château d’Orly — which provided him a home and an opportunity to perform on stage until his death in Paris at 76 on Jan. 21, 1938.
You can find the French narrated version on the Internet Archive as well as the English version shown here, both are available for download in a variety of formats.
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