Canada’s Top Ten Shorts Programme 1

This evening I saw the first half of the Canada’s Top Ten shorts programme, which featured five of the top short films of last year.  In hindsight, I probably could have stayed to see all ten shorts, but I had already spent a long afternoon downtown, which included seeing No Strings Attached.  Anyways, here are my thoughts on each of the shorts.

Les fleurs de l’âge (Little Flowers) – Vincent Biron
This is a coming of age story about a group of kids on a summers day.  At 18 minutes, it was the longest of the featured shorts and it it definitely allowed all the kids to each have a properly developed story-arc.  Definitely a very decent film.

8/10

Lipsett Diaries (Les Journaux de Lipsett) – Theodore Ushev
This was a very awe-inspiring film.  The film is an avant-garde animated documentary about the life of Arthur Lipsett.  The animation looked like a moving oil painting and I believe there was some rotoscoping used as well.  This was definitely one of the stand-outs of the set.

10/10

Mokhtar – Halima Ouardiri
This was actually a bit of a sad film about a Moroccan boy, who is locked away by his father solely because the boy brought a young injured owl (a bad omen in their culture) home.  I actually started tearing up by the end of the story and it was definitely a very powerful film, despite its mere 15 min length.

9/10

Above the Knee – Greg Atkins
In this quite comedic film, a man decides to wear a skirt to work and ends receiving a quite positive response from his co-workers.  Despite the comedic nature, the film also have messages involving social norms and individuality.

8/10

The Legend of Beaver Dam – Jerome Sable
This film is just pure awesome!  The film is a musical horror comedy about a campfire urban legend come to life.  The film features catchy songs, lots of gore, and is just plain fun!  Definitely my favourite film of the bunch.

10/10

And that’s my rundown of the shorts.