SHORTS COLUMN | British Filmmakers Reign Supreme at North America’s Three Biggest Short Film Fests

With 37 British shorts screening at Palm Springs alone, the British invasion was particularly strong at the desert fest.

Osbert Parker‘s seven-minute noir-themed “Yours Truly” (which garnered an honorable mention in the animation category at CFC’s Worldwide) was a personal favorite of Palm Springs juror John Dahl. Playing Palm Springs’ opening night was Aardman Animation‘s “The Pearce Sisters,” a 10-minute sibling story from director Luis Cook. The stop-motion tale previously won a Special Jury Prize at Annecy International Animation Festival.

Other UK shorts showcased at Palm Springs include “Specky,” a 22-minute personal doc about eyewear by nearsighted Scottish director Anne-Claire Pilley; Duncan Wellaway‘s 12-minute “Always Crashing In The Same Car,” starring Richard E. Grant; “The Cleaner,” Noel Kearns’ 13-minute crime drama set in a London Hospital; and “RedBlack,” a five-minute taxi cab confessional shocker by Mal Woolford.

Several UK shorts that previously played the 2007 Sundance Film Festival won over the Canadian audiences at CFC’s Worldwide Fest, including the Scottish 10-minute trailer-park comedy “Trout” by Johnny Barrington, Tom Harper‘s 10-minute teenage gang lord drama “Cubs,” and Daniel Mulloy‘s eight-minute dysfunctional adult family drama, “Dad.”
 
World-premiering at Worldwide was the wonderfully-titled “The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island,” James Griffith‘s 24-minute rock and roll fable written by and starring Tom Basden and Tim Key. “Herb McGwyer” also won Best British Short Film at the 2007 Edinburgh International Film Festival. 

“Soft” director Simon Ellis also had another short at the Canadian festival, “A Storm and Some Snow,” a two-minute experimental piece about the weather. “A Storm and Some Snow” previously played Tampere. A very personal film selected by the Worldwide programmers is “My Life at 40,” Royal College of Art animator Laurie Hill‘s eight-minute rumination on how his childhood-self pictured his adult-self as “a suave Lamborghini-driving conservationist, and world authority on Anglerfish, of course.”  Hill also has another childhood-remembrance short, the 10-minute “My First Taste Of Death,” which played LA Shortsfest.

And perhaps the silliest of all the British shorts played both Palm Springs and Los Angeles: Kengo Kurimoto‘s six-minute “Yoga Noga Reyoga; The Enlightenment Competition,” which is (in the words of the filmmaker) “a computer-generated animated short about two young monks’ somewhat shambolic attempt to find peace and unity.”

Immature monks, Bob Geldof tribute artists, and hooligans beaten back with a cricket bat, this is what you miss if you don’t keep up with the newest voices of British cinema. Can’t wait to see what next year’s crop will bring.

[Kim Adelman is the author of “The Ultimate Filmmaker’s Guide to Short Films.”]