CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival Winners
Amma, Danse Macabre, Slavar, Land of Men Take Awards at Toronto Fest
Jun 22, 2009
From June 16 - 21st, Toronto hosted the Canadian Film Centre's 2009 Worldwide Short Film Festival, a celebration of all things . . . short.
On Sunday, the jury announced the big winners of the festival, including the Telus Audience Choice Award, a competition won simply by asking audiences to name their fave short of the festival.
The results highlight an interesting dichotomy between what thrilled the jury – which included filmmaker Audrey Cummings ("Burgeon and Fade"), BABELGUM's Karol Martesko-Fenster, Reelworld's Lila Karim, France 3's Roland Nguyen and Curtocircuito Short Film Festival director Tim Redford – and what the audience liked.
Here are the competition winners:
Best Live Action Short
France's "Tous Les Enfants S'Appellent Dominique (My Name is Dominic)" is a dark look at childhood psychological testing. An online school survey (an actual test which has the same name as the title) determines that a little boy has violent and psychopathic tendencies. However, his single mother doesn't believe the results. Who is correct?
Best Emerging Canadian Filmmaker
Aparna Kapur's animated "Amma" caught the jury's attention with its haunting depiction of the relationship between a girl and her grandmother, and how it influences the course of her life. A beautiful film.
Best Cinematography in a Canadian Short
Kevin Drew's "The Water" didn't have to rely on its all-star cast – Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins), David Fox (When Night is Falling) and Canadian songbird Leslie Feist – to stand out. A winter snowscape provides the backdrop for a haunting (there's that word again) tale of a father and son dragging their painful past out into the present day. Not surprisingly, Murphy and Fox do much of the dramatic heavy lifting, while Feist just reacts.
Best Animated Short
Sweden and Denmark's Hanna Heilborn and David Aronowitsch presented "Slavar (Slaves)," a harsh look at violence and slavery in southern Sudan. Animating the brutal, true-life stories of young Africans Abouk, 9, and Machiek, 15, had its heart in the right place (and this sort of thing always appeals to festival juries), but its execution didn't quite live up to its potential.
Best Experimental Short
This could've also been called the "truth in advertising" award. Pedro Pires' "Danse Macabre" was exactly that: a female corpse's journey from suicide through autopsy to cremation presented as a dance, with the cadaver jerking and contorting in its post-death throes. Not since Snakes on a Plane has a title described a film quite so well.
Best Documentary Short
Rhys Graham's "Skin" follows a man's decision to donate his full body tattoo to an art gallery after his demise.
Best Canadian Short
Ky Nam Le Duc's "Terre des Hommes (Land of Men)" follows a female police officer in Longueil, Quebec, who is placed in charge of an illegal alien. The cop finds herself confronting a painful past – and questioning her professional ethics – while taking care of her mysterious prisoner. It wasn't half bad . . . but it wasn't half good, either.
The Telus Audience Choice Award
This award proves that what thrills the cinematic elite aren't necessarily the films the audience enjoys watching.
Unlike the darker shorts that won kudos from the jury, Frédéric Vin's "Paul Rondin est . . . Paul Rondin (Paul Rondin is Paul Rondin)" was a touching and hilarious look at a movie trailer announcer who cannot separate his work from his daily life, especially when it comes to finding love. The short charmed the gala audience, winning the biggest applause of the night.
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