Sundance Shorts - Getting Ready for the Anchorage International Film Festival [UPDATED - AIFF Selections Are Posted]

[UPDATE Oct 15, 2013  8:30 am:  Go here to see this year's selections for the Anchorage International Film Festival.]

It seemed like a good idea to see the Sundance Shorts program at the Bear Tooth tonight as a prep for the Anchorage International Film Festival coming up in December.   Tomorrow the selections for this year are scheduled to be announced.

And tonight's program was even introduced by Tony Shepard (the man in the middle above) the AIFF founder and Rich Curtner*, one of the Shorts Programmer for the AIFF.

The films were an impressive group of shorts - but it's quite possible to have some that fit in that category at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  What impressed me particularly was the variety of styles.  Perhaps the most riveting was 'Whiplash' - that followed a young man into a music class where the teacher turns out to be a tyrannical bully. 

Screenshot from Whiplash Interview Sundance

In 'Skinnengrove', we mainly see the black and white pictures the photographer took in the waterfront village while he discusses how he took them and stories they hold.  Occasionally, we see the closeups of the photographer's face lit by a globe as he projects the photos.  An original and powerful film.  You can see the whole film here.

Old furniture marches down the road in stop motion animation in 'Irish Folk Furniture'.  The old dilapidated pieces' stories are told and they get revitalized.  Charming story with subtitles so we can understand the English.  You can see an Irish television news program announcing that the film won the best short animation.

K.I.T. is a very well made and probably the most comfortably entertaining, but fairly traditional film.  The others all brought something a little different from what we're use to seeing in film.

Here's the list of films we saw from the Sundance website:

THE DATE
Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction
Tino’s manhood is put to the test in front of two women when he has to host a date for Diablo, the family’s stud cat.
(Jenni Toivoniemi, Finland, 8 min)
WHIPLASH
Short Film Jury Award: US Fiction
An aspiring drummer enters an elite conservatory's top jazz orchestra.
(Damien Chazelle, USA, 17 min)
SKINNINGROVE
Short Film Jury Award: Non-Fiction
Photographer Chris Killip shares unpublished images chronicling time spent among the fiercely independent residents of a remote English fishing village.
(Michael Almereyda, USA, 15 min)
UNTIL THE QUIET COMES
Short Film Special Jury Award
Shot in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles, this film deals with themes of violence, camaraderie and spirituality through the lens of magical realism.
(Kahlil Joseph, USA, 4 min)
IRISH FOLK FURNITURE
Short Film Jury Award: Animation
In Ireland, old hand-painted furniture is often associated with hard times, with

Irish Folk Furniture Screen shot from You Tube

poverty, and with a time many would rather forget. In this animated documentary, 16 pieces of traditional folk furniture are repaired and returned home.
(Tony Donoghue, Ireland, 8 min)
THE EVENT
Love and a severed foot at the end of the world.
(Julia Pott, USA/United Kingdom, 4 min)
JONAH
When two young men photograph a gigantic fish leaping from the sea, their small town becomes a tourist attraction in this story about the old and the new.
(Kibwe Tavares, Tanzania/United Kingdom, 20 min)
K.I.T.
A guilt-ridden, but well-intentioned, yuppie goes to great lengths to prove she is a decent person.
(Michelle Morgan, USA, 15 min)
Full program = 93 minutes

And here's where they are touring after Anchorage:

October 25-31 Winston-Salem, NC a/perture cinema          www.aperturecinema.com	October 27 Portland, ME Space Gallery         www.space538.org
October 28-30 Albuquerque, NM Guild Cinema         www.guildcinema.com	November 1  Eugene, OR Bijou Art Cinemas         www.bijou-cinemas.com
November 1 - 3 Waterville, ME Railroad Square Cinema www.railroadsquarecinema.com	December 6-12 Denver, CO Denver Film Society www.denverfilm.org

*I'm pretty sure it was Curtner through deduction and google searching.