Taking our short films to the world

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Taking our short films to the world --

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 09:55

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SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: The Cape Town leg of the Shnit International Short Film Festival is takes place from 7 to 11 October in venues in and around the city; bringing together a selection of top local and international work. Sean Drummond, Cape Town festival manager and global Shnit coordinator discusses the state of local short filmmaking with Screen Africa.

In what ways do you feel a short film can be more satisfying than a feature film to viewers?

Im not sure Id say outright that a short or a feature is more satisfying... I think each can be satisfying in its own way. With shorts, I think part of the appeal is access and variety - how many different types of short storytelling are available, in so many different genres, styles, etc. I think audiences are incredibly sharp these days - media literate, story literate, and a lot more discerning. If we dont like something, we switch off, or switch over. Our attention spans are quite a lot shorter too I think. With a short youre in it, youre entertained, and youre out. Short sharp concentrated ideas, emotions, moments, insights.

Shorts are a chance to be both less rigid and more focussed than with longer form storytelling, where arcs and structures are so important. With shorts you get to bend the rules, and as an audience youre in on that. You can hone in on one tiny aspect, and make your whole film about that, and have it resonate - though you do get longer shorts that play on mainstream story structures, too. My favourite-ever Shnit films list includes a brilliant 45 second, one-scene comedy short that won the audience award in 2010 and still gets a laugh-out-loud response every time it screens; and a half-hour well-structured, more traditional storytelling short from last year that brings me to tears every time I see it.

How have you seen short films develop and change since the start of your festival?

Most of the change in how I see shorts is within myself. Having written and made shorts, and partly launched my own film career and company off the back of a successful short, I really got into the world of shorts from a festival point of view by accident. It s really only since bringing Shnit to South Africa and then going on to get heavily involved with Shnit globally that Ive learnt how expansive world shorts really are. Its one of the things were really pushing this year at the festival in Cape Town - shorts are an essential foundation stone of any countrys industry, and were in the early stages of a new wave of filmmaking in South Africa that I believe is going to be driven largely by shorts. We need to secure that foundation and now start focussing on taking our short films to the world, as proof of concepts for longer projects, or as stand-alone works in themselves. Theres a huge marketplace for them, and an appetite for our stories, and we need to serve that.

How do you select shorts for your line up? What are you looking for?

Weve got different levels of selection at Shnit - A global selection panel makes the selections for the international competition, looking at 1000 s of entries from all over the world, across all genres, including documentary, animation and experimental. The localised films are sent to Playgrounds (host cities) for their national competition selections; we have an invitation South Africa selection panel made up of filmmakers, producers and festival programmers in Cape Town, London, Los Angeles and Johannesburg. The basic criteria for Shnit films are the same on both international and local levels: first, technical excellence, imagination, originality, and a powerful viewpoint - a directorial vision, a voice; a curious eye on the world, perhaps. Bold filmmaking, whether surreal animation or deep drama. Shnit films are often quirky and fun, but hopefully never shallow or gimmicky - we tend towards films that tap into something raw and human, deeper films, trying to make sense of the world maybe, trying to unpack the world we live in - or aiming for a greater understanding of what/who we are as human beings. It helps on an international level that the festival is so international - you really get a sense of a worlds worth of storytelling mindsets in each year.

This year I think weve managed to select a really powerfully resonant South African competition line up, as well as a really strong out-of-competition local line up too. It was a bumper year for entries. Were showing around 35 local films this year, and it was the hardest battle for screen time I think weve had in the history of the fest in Cape Town.

Do you feel there is a kind of short film revival taking place in the industry? If so, what do you think is the reason for this?

I think shorts have always had a solid place in the industry - looking at festivals like Clermont-Ferrand thats been running for 38 years. Many top filmmakers working today made their name through short films before great success. Film schools have focussed on shorts for a long time, and grad works are often the films that announce new exciting voices onto the scene, and they take off from there. But no doubt the audience for shorts is growing hugely, probably mostly because of the internet, in that shorts are accessible now in a way theyve never been, but also in a revival of festivals and screening events focussed on shorts all over the world. And so filmmakers are turning (back?) to shorts as a way of getting noticed, of cutting their creative teeth, of experimenting and trying out new techniques and ideas. And then of course the means of production are so accessible these days. Anyone can be making great work and putting it straight online. It s all a lot more democratic, like with music - the audience is yours for the taking, if you can grab their attention.

How has the quality of loc

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