Microcinema DVDs - Cinema 16: European Short Films

Catalog Number: MC-739	Type: Shorts Compilation	Genre: Mixed Genre
Copyright: 2007	Length: 218 minutes	Format: DVD Region: 0 (All)
TV System: NTSC	ISBN:	UPC: 616892897828
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Films In Compilation

Man Without a Head, The directed by Juan Solanas France, Narrative, 2003, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:18:00 THE MAN WITHOUT A HEAD (L'HOMME SANS TÊTE) is one of the most outstanding short film debuts of recent years. Made over 4 years by Juan Solanas, who previously worked as a cinematographer, it's not only visually and technically accomplished, but also sensitively drawn - a great example of how a short can be every bit as entertaining and moving as a feature. The film won a raft of awards around the world including the Jury Prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and France's leading award, the Cesar. An ordinary room overlooking a vast industrial landscape. In the distance, the ocean as far as the eye can see. With a nostalgic air, the man without a head dances with lively steps. A bow tie is tied. A photograph, with a dazzling look from the one he loves. He prepares himself for the romantic rendezvous. Tonight, he will declare his love. For such an occasion, he shall buy a head. "We're living in a period where cinema is a product; movies are becoming more and more commercialized. Short films are one of the last real places for artistic freedom - they're important to celebrate just for that." Juan Solanas
Wasp directed by Andrea Arnold United Kingdom, Documentary, 2003, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:23:00 Wasp was Andrea Arnold's third short film. Described by British newspaper the Guardian as 'socialist realist film poetry' it has won 30 international festival awards and the Oscar for best short film at the 2005 Academy Awards. Most recently Arnold directed her debut feature Red Road, winning the 2006 Cannes jury prize. 23 year old Zoë ought to be wild and free but she's Already got four kids. Zoë is broke and her kids are Hungry. She abandons them for an old flame while Wasps are hunting for food around a rubbish bin. "I write usually because I have an image in my head that I can't shake off and that is how Wasp started. That particular image forms the climax of the film. Everything else is a mix of my childhood and imagination. The main aim for the film was to try and show the central character Zoë in all her complexity. I know the way she treats her kids is not good, verging on abuse really, but I wanted to show why she might do that and for the audience to have empathy for her as well as the kids. I wanted to show how a person's circumstances and environment influences the way they essentially are. I wanted people to understand her behavior instead of just condemning it. This was my main goal for the film." Andrea Arnold on Wasp
Doodlebug directed by Christopher Nolan United Kingdom, Exclusive, 1997, 35mm, B&W, 00:03:00 This early short film from the director of MEMENTO, INSOMNIA and BATMAN BEGINS was made when he was a student in London. Nolan was studying English Literature at University College London when he started to make 16mm films at the college film society, of which the surreal short DOODLEBUG was one. This early film shows the preoccupation with narrative boundaries Nolan would later explore in his feature films and has the simplicity common to many good shorts. The film was produced by his now-wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas. A man waits patiently in his apartment to squash a bug, but he could be hurting himself more than he realizes. "We did the effects on the best machines we could at the time, for free. We painted our own blue screen with paint from John Lewis shop that doesn't actually work very well. It's worth paying for the proper paint it you're ever faced with a similar dilemma." Christopher Nolan on Doodlebug
World of Glory directed by Roy Andersson Sweden, Narrative, 1991, 00:16:00 Roy Andersson's WORLD OF GLORY is a classic, recognised by the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival to be one of history's most important short films, and included in a top-ten list together with such films as the Lumiere Brothers' LA BATAILLE DE BOULES DE NEIGE and Luis Bunuel's UN CHIEN ANDALOU. The film is unique and shows, in a series of tableaus, a man in various frozen situations. He's the product of a stiff and reserved Sweden, living politely while feeling very miserable somewhere behind the painfully correct facade. The film's Swedish title, Härlig är Jorden (literally, 'Lovely is the earth'), which comes from a Swedish hymn of the same name, stands in sharp contrast to the cold and lifeless mood of the scenes. Roy Andersson is famous for the individuality of his films and the singular style of his work. After a 30 year break he completed his third feature, SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR, which won the Jury prize at Cannes in 2000 and had considerable international success. Andersson's latest feature, DU LEVANDE (We The Living), was completed in 2007. "The opening scene of World of Glory is a reconstruction of events during the Second World War. The term 'ethnic cleansings' did not exist then, it was called the 'final solution'. Human beings were put to death by, among other methods, gassing in diesel-driven, closed vans. The gas from the motor was piped into the storage compartment. These vans were the forerunners of the gas chamber. These events, this conduct, these rationally worked out extermination methods, this coldness and insensitivity towards other people's suffering are for me the total embodiment of evil. How shall we handle this knowledge of what humanity is capable of?" Roy Andersson on World of Glory
Je t'aime John Wayne directed by Toby MacDonald United Kingdom, Narrative, 2000, 35mm, B&W, 00:10:00 London co-stars as Paris in JE T'AIME JOHN WAYNE, the story of a young man who lives out his dream of being French cinema icon Jean Paul Belmondo, star of Jean-Luc Godard's new wave classic A BOUT DE SOUFFLE. He's got the sharp suit and a pack of Luckies, but will he find the perfect girl to complete the picture? This first film from director Toby MacDonald and producer Luke Morris was a hit at film festivals around the world, was BAFTA nominated and won the European Film Award for Best Short in 2001. Shot in 35mm in black and white, it stars Kris Marshall (LOVE ACTUALLY, FOUR FEATHERS) and Camilla Rutherford (GOSFORD PARK, THE DARJEELING LIMITED). Luke Morris and Toby MacDonald were recently BAFTA nominated for the second time for HEAVY METAL DRUMMER, a film about a young heavy metal fan in the Middle East. "One of the great things about the film is how London substitutes for Paris. The script lets us make London look romantic, it lets us make it look cool. If you have black and white it can look really beautiful at times. London looks how we wish it looked." Toby Macdonald on Je t'aime John Wayne
Gasman directed by Lynne Ramsay United Kingdom, Narrative, 1997, Super 16mm, Color, 00:14:00 Ramsay graduated from the UK's National Film and Television School in 1995. In 1996 she won the Cannes Prix du Jury for her graduation short film SMALL DEATHS. Her second short, KILL THE DAY, won the Clermont Ferrand Prix du Jury and GASMAN, made the same year, won Ramsay her second Cannes prize in 1998. GASMAN also received a Scottish BAFTA for Best Short Film. Ramsay's debut feature RATCATCHER screened at Cannes in Un Certain Regard and went on to open the Edinburgh International Film Festival where Ramsay received the Guardian New Directors prize. She also won the Carl Foreman Award for Best Newcomer in British Film at the 2000 BAFTA Awards, the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival and the Silver Hugo for Best Director at the Chicago International Film Festival. Her second film, MORVERN CALLER, features Samantha Morton in the lead role. Once again Ramsay reunited with the director of photography, production designer and editor who she worked with on all of her short films. "I started writing short stories at film school. I wanted to make something that meant more to me than the films I was asked to photograph. I felt everyone was trying to make a calling card for the industry. In the end, I ended up filming three of the stories I wrote, and in each of them I tried to play with different ideas and styles." Lynne Ramsay on Gasman
Jabberwocky directed by Jan Svankmajer Czech Republic, Animation, 1971, 00:13:00 "The world is divided into two unequal camps - those who have never heard of Jan Svankmajer and those who happen upon his work and know that they have come face to face with genius". The New Yorker "My films have several meanings, and I'd rather they inspired the viewer to use his own subjective symbolism to interpret them. Just as in psychoanalysis, there must always be secrecy. Without secrecy, there is no art." Jan Svankmajer Jan Svankmajer is one of the world's most imaginative and extraordinary film-makers. Svankmajer, known for his four features, ALICE, FAUST, CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE and LITTLE OTIK also produced 24 short films between 1964 and 1990, only concentrating on longer works after the collapse of Communism in Czechoslovakia. JABBERWOCKY, based on Lewis Carroll's poem, is one of the most famous works of this master surrealist. "My version of Jabberwocky, which has no conventional narrative, was a Freudian record of the development of a child through all its stages: through homosexuality and sado-masochism to rebellion against the father." Jan Svankmajer on Jabberwocky
Fierrot Le Pou directed by Mathieu Kassovitz France, Narrative, 1990, 35 MM, B&W, 00:08:00 Actor-writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz is one of the leading filmmakers to emerge from France in the last ten years. He is perhaps best known as the writer/director of the acclaimed French drama LA HAINE (HATE), which, in 1995, garnered the French César Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Editing and won Kassovitz the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Every Sunday, Solange comes to the gymnasium to practice basket ball on her own. Every Sunday, at the same time, a young Parisain comes to practice too. He's used to failing in trying to impress her with his scores. And every Sunday, she smiles, enjoying watching him gesticulate. But this particular Sunday, the young man is playing an unerring score... "My father's first piece of advice before I started making this film was to, 'make it with whatever means you have. Count your pennies and then invent a story'. Means I didn't really have, so I invented a story that didn't require dialogue or lighting. The camera was a 16mm Bolex with a spring wind that made it possible to film 30 seconds straight. The greatest part of the budget went on an adaptor for photo lenses that cost a horrible 700 francs (I still remember the cost)". Mathieu Kassovitz on Fierrot Le Pou
Rabbit directed by Run Wrake United Kingdom, Animation, 2005, Color, 00:08:00 Run has lived in London and worked as a freelance animator since graduating from the Animation MA course at London's Royal College of Art in 1990. He has produced several self-financed short films alongside commercials, titles and music videos. As well as receiving a BAFTA nomination, RABBIT has screened at film festivals all over the world to critical acclaim. A selection of 1950s educational stickers, found in a provincial junkshop twenty years ago, provide the ingredients for this adult fairytale. When a boy and girl find an idol in the stomach of a rabbit, its magical abilities lead to riches, but for how long? rabbit tells a tale of lost innocence, greed and the random justice of nature. "The skies were all shot out of the back window of my house. They were all shot early in the evening and then reversed to give the illusion of a sunset rather than a sunrise." "The idol was really the catalyst for the whole story, I knew I wanted to make a simple morality tale about greed and once I focused in on him, I then decided he would have the power to transform objects." Run Wrake on Rabbit
Copy Shop directed by Virgil Widrich Austria, Animation, 2001, B&W, 00:12:00 COPY SHOP is an ingenious, visually stunning experimental film about a man who works in a copy shop and copies himself until he fills the whole world. The film actually consists of nearly 18,000 photocopied digital frames, which are animated and filmed with a 35mm camera. Written, produced, edited and directed by Austria's Virgil Widrich, COPY SHOP uses and comments on contemporary technology so lyrically that it recalls the most poetic films of the silent era. Aside from an Oscar nomination COPY SHOP was a huge hit at festivals around the world, playing at 133 festivals and receiving over 30 international awards. "Copy Shop was made with printed out paper - the whole film was animated like a flip book. Every film was filmed with a digital video camera then printed out and reanimated. We did this to save shooting on 35mm or 16mm and it turned out to be a nice way to make the film look the way it does." Virgil Widrich on Copy shop
Boy and Bicycle directed by Ridley Scott United Kingdom, Narrative, 1958, 16mm, B&W, 00:27:00 Using a Bolex camera borrowed from art school Ridley Scott (BLADE RUNNER, GLADIATOR) shot his first film over the summer of 1956 in his hometown of Hartlepool. Scott used his brother, Tony, then 16 years old, and his mother and father as actors. There are few signs of what audiences could later expect from a Ridley Scott film. It was shot over six weeks, with voice-over and synchronised dialogue added later. The first audiences for BOY AND BICYCLE were Scott's teachers and fellow students in the Theatre Design department of the Royal College of Art. Scott finished the film in 1958 with a £250 grant from the British Film Institute, following his graduation. He cites the experience of making this short the one that made him and his brother Tony Scott (ENEMY OF THE STATE, SPY GAME) want to become filmmakers. "I was heavily into Kurosawa at the time. I knew he used certain filters for his monochrome films. So I was stuffing on red filters every chance I got. I used a lot of hand-held camera and even drafted my father to act as a camera-car driver." Ridley Scott on Boy and Bicycle
Nocturne directed by Lars Von Trier Denmark, Narrative, 1980, Color, 00:08:00 Nocturne was Lars Von Trier's graduation film made at the The National Film School of Denmark in Copenhagen. It's an intriguing look at the beginings of the career of one of Europe's most prolific and provocative film directors (BREAKING THE WAVES, DANCER IN THE DARK, DOGVILLE). Von Trier is closely associated with the Dogme collective calling for a return to plausible stories in filmmaking and a move away from artifice and towards technical minimalism. Lars von Trier's tense, experimental film, about a woman and her fear of day light recalls the work of avant-garde pioneers Maya Deren and Luis Bunuel. A mysterious phone call and circling flock of birds accentuate the visual poetry and establish the compelling emotional upset and narrative tension of which Von Trier would later become master. He has described himself in Interview magazine (June 1989) as "a melancholy Dane masturbating the dark to images on the silver screen." He has never been to the United States as he refuses to fly. "Everything said or written about me is a lie" Lars von Trier
Before Dawn directed by Balint Kenyeres Hungary, Narrative, 2005, 35, Color, 00:13:00 Before dawn, the wheat gently undulates on the hillside. Before dawn, people will rise and others will take away their hope. Balint Kenyeres was born in 1976 in Budapest. After studying philosophy, history and film theory, he graduated as a film director at the Budapest Film and Theatre Academy in 2006. BEFORE DAWN was selected for 100 Film Festivals and won 40 awards including the European Film Academy's best short film in 2006. "For a film like this first you have to find the right location and the right faces, actors, characters and then you can develop your original idea and come up with more details. So I knew that my most important job was to find a right location for the film. I knew that I wanted a kind of closed valley and I knew that I wanted to use every angle possible. Actually I have been to every part of Hungary and I have seen every single meadow in the country." Balint Kenyeres on Before Dawn Commentary by Balint Kenyeres, recorded in Budapest, Hungary.
Election Night directed by Anders Thomas Jensen Denmark, Narrative, 1998, 35 MM, Color, 00:11:00 Anders Thomas Jensen made three short films over three consecutive years. Each year he was nominated for an Oscar until he finally won with this final short, ELECTION NIGHT. Anders Thomas Jensen is one of the most prolific young writers in Denmark and has been at the forefront of Dogme movement as a screenwriter (MIFUNE, THE KING IS ALIVE) but has directed two features in his own right. On election night we meet Peter, an idealistic young man, who suddenly discovers he has forgotten to vote. On his way to the polls he encounters a variety of taxi drivers, all racist in their way and Peter has to decide whether to stand up for his convictions or get to the polls on time. "I got the idea when I drove with a cab driver like this one. He was so racist. I asked him in a polite way to shut up but he didn't shut up. I asked him if he had anything to read and he actually gave me Mein Kampf. I had this important meeting and couldn't get off - that was when I got the idea for the film." Andres Thomas Jensen on Election Night Commentary by Anders Thomas Jensen, recorded in London, England
Six Shooter directed by Martin McDonagh Ireland, Comedy / Satire, 2004, 35 MM, Color, 00:27:00 Six Shooter is a black and bloody Irish comedy written and directed by Martin McDonagh. The film was BAFTA nominated, won Best Short at the Irish Film Awards in 2005 and won the short film Oscar in 2006. Six Shooter is McDonagh's first film following a hugely successful career as a playwright. His work includes THE PILLOWMAN (Olivier Award and four-time Tony nominee) whose 2005 Broadway run starred Billy Crudup and Jeff Goldblum and UK run starred David Tennant and Jim Broadbent, THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE (Olivier Award and Tony Nominee) and A SKULL IN CONNEMARA. The New York Times called him "a playwright with an anarchic streak as wide and twisting as the River Liffey." McDonagh's first feature film, IN BRUGES, stars Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson. On a train journey home through rural Ireland, a man whose wife has just died that morning, encounters a strange and possibly psychotic young oddball. His outlandish words and actions set in motion a chain of events that lead inexorably to the tale's dark and dangerous conclusion.
Opening Day of Close-Up, The directed by Nanni Moretti Italy, Narrative, 1996, 35 MM, Color, 00:07:00 The OPENING DAY OF CLOSE-UP is a classic short from Italy's most influential director, that sums up the state of cinema in less than 10 minutes. With the awarding of the Palme d'Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival to Nanni Moretti's new film, The Son's Room, a wider international community has begun to learn what many have long known: that Moretti is a bellwether of contemporary Italian cinema. From the early 1970s, when his first Super-8 shorts were a hit with Roman cinema clubs, to this most recent success, the forty-seven-year-old Moretti has written, directed, and starred in each of his films. An intellectual even amidst low-brow slapstick, Moretti, practices the art of balancing comedy with deeper metaphysical concerns and a political consciousness. At his cinema in Rome, the Nuovo Sacher, Nanni Moretti anxiously oversees preparations for the premiere of the film Close-up, by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. Meanwhile Disney's The Lion King is taking Italy by storm. Commentary by Nanni Moretti, recorded in Rome, Italy