For 19 years now, the Aspen Shortsfest has connected audiences to one of cinema’s great pleasures, the short-form live-action, documentary or animated film.
And while the movies have stayed short — 30 minutes, max, and that includes the credits — the art form has been long on changes.
This is not a culling of what program director George Eldred calls the “rank amateur YouTube and Facebook fodder of hours of video diaries and hand-held bootleg concert footage.”
But the digital revolution has had an impact, he says. “As more and more filmmakers worldwide gain access to more affordable and higher- quality cameras and computer-based digital editing equipment, overall shorts filmmaking quality has definitely risen in the past decade.
“And as awareness of the genre of shorts around the world has grown in professional respect, more talented actors are willing to star in or return to performing in shorts.”
These are shifts in quality that audiences seem to be drawn to more and more.
Shortsfest, which runs April 6-11, is considered a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards. Winners of the best comedy, best drama and best animation awards become eligible for Oscar consideration.
This year’s jurors for the international competition know a thing or two about Academy Awards. Sarah Siegel-Magness (producer of “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”) and Daniel Junge (director of the nominated short doc “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”) join actress Meg Ryan on this year’s jury.
In all three short forms this year, kids make their presence known — quite literally in the case of “Home Is Where You Find It.” The documentary is produced by Neal Baer (“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”) and directed by pensive and hopeful 16-year-old Alcides Soares, an AIDS orphan living in Mozambique.
In her lovingly rendered, at times dreamy, documentary “Born Sweet,” Oscar-winning filmmaker Cynthia Wade (“Freeheld”) tells the story of a wan Cambodian boy named Vinh. The 15-year-old is ailing because of arsenic poisoning. In a painful irony, aid organizations unwittingly tapped into the Mekong River’s contaminated soil when they dug wells for rural villages.
With his sweet smile and dear haircut, Vinh dreams of being Cambodia’s best karaoke singer. He gets a chance to be famous in an even more heroic way.
In the French narrative “Battered,” a beat-up car in the woods is only one of the discoveries a group of youngsters make. This lovely, bruised tale of friends about to go their separate ways during summer vacation also features a tender kiss, a found pistol and some painful revelations along the way.
In the Israeli film “Ramlod,” a young photographer runs out of gas under a highway underpass. A crew of kids approaches her. Their de facto leader offers to show her where the nearest gas station is if she’ll take a few pictures of them. She accepts the offer but after a while grows suspicious. Is her brewing anxiety — or ours — warranted? That’s the philosophical quandary this smart and pleasing film piques.
30 countries, 85 films
With 85 films from 30 countries, there’s more to the subject matter. In a favorite, Simon Lelouch’s “7:57 a.m.-p.m.” violinist Renaud Capuçon performs on line 6 of the Parisian subway then, two days later, plays in the Theâtre des Champs-Elysees. The film reproduces to potent effect an experiment in music appreciation and indifference first conducted when world-class violinist Joshua Bell played in a Washington subway station and collected only $32.
Two vignettes — “Dust Kids” and “Math Test” show up-and-coming Korean animator Jung Yoo-Mi to be an idiosyncratic force. She likes grappling with notions of self in rather surreal, beautifully line-drawn, ways.
In addition to its intriguingly crafted shorts programs, the festival will hold a free seminar on micro-filmmaking and digital distribution, with film and television director Lewis Teague (“The Jewel of the Nile” “Alligator”). Cast and crew of his latest endeavor — a 10-part Web series called “CharlottaTS” about a transsexual actress from Barcelona living in L.A. — will be in attendance. (April 10).
Shortsfest closes with a look at the best fare from Australia’s Tropfest, the “world’s largest short film fest.” About 150,000 people reportedly attend the Australian outdoor extravaganza at which films can’t be longer than seven — count ’em, seven — minutes.
“Aspen Shortsfest”
Annual bonanza of very fine documentaries, narratives and animated films all under 30 minutes. Wheeler Opera House, 320 E Hyman Ave., Aspen April 6-April 11. Tickets available at . For more information:
