European Fantastic Shorts: Short but sweet

European Fantastic Shorts, the short film festival of Imagine: 25th Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, contains around twenty films this year.
Varying from three minutes to just over fifteen; from all over Europe right down to Croatia.
15 to 26 April 2009 – Pathé Tuschinski
www.imaginefilmfestival.nl

Short films appear to be getting longer and longer. Fortunately it’s a case of more is more. Like the French COUPÉ COURT (Pascal Chind, 2007) which goes on for 17 minutes but feels not a second too long. This bittersweet comedy about a midget and his desire for the local rocker’s girlfriend creates a world somewhere between Grease and Tim Burton’s work.

That ultra-short can be unforgettable too, is proved by the Spanish MAMA (Andres Muschietti, 2008) about two sisters and their creepy mother. Total duration: 3 minutes. But rest assured that this film will stay with you for a long time. Croatian (!) MORANA from 2008 makes up for the fact that there’s not a lot of anime in the main programme this year. A futuristic hunter sets up camp on top of a rock and experiences hallucinatory dreams. Or are they glimpses of a former life? Director Bogojevic Narath leaves many questions unanswered, but his pint-size anime is of hypnotic beauty.

An animated documentary? We have it, see Swedish THE BIG STORE (Lars Arrhenius, Johannes Müntzig, 2008). The filmmakers present an almost philosophical view on the trivial run-up to a dramatic event in recent Swedish history. Through X-ray images.

The Netherlands are once again well represented in the shorts programme this year, among others with the cut-out animation MAGIC SHOW from 2009 by comic artist Milan Hulsing, and with ELEVADOR (Lars Damoiseaux, 2008), a witty mockumentary which plays on fear of elevators and (a little) hate of foreigners. Also part of a series of homages to Dick Maas’ classic lowlands-thriller De Lift.