Friday sees the start of the London Short Film Festival, which will be screening an enormous number of short films – some great ones that have popped up in other parts of the country, and also sure to screen some premiere gems that the accomplished Elle Haywood will take in for TAKE ONE.
Screening in the Blue Monday program on Saturday January 12th is BLUE CHRISTMAS, the excellent tale of a Scottish debt collector going about his business in a seaside town on Christmas Day. The short has made an impression at every festival it has screened at and won numerous awards, and was mentioned in our end of year awards – a Runner Up for Best Festival Short, as well as lead actor Jamie Robson earning a special acting mention. The film’s director of photography, Robbie Ryan, is also nominated many places for feature length work this year with THE FAVOURITE, and it’s easy to see why by watching Well’s short: acting, directing, and photography working in harmony.
Other films include COYOTE, which screened at Edinburgh Short Film Festival and will show on January 14th program International: Creature Comforts. The animation “shows incredible imagination, mixing the cartoony gore of ‘Rick & Morty’ with the exaggerated violence of ‘Ren & Stimpy’, and director Lorenz Wunderle’s own wonderfully designed sequences“, and should be a good omen for the festival’s animation offerings.
London Short Film Festival seem to have also found their own offering of unique screening spaces – the Air Draft – reflecting the growing inventiveness of film festivals to show films, and short films in particular, in unique spaces (such as the Edinburgh Garden Cinema for Edinburgh Shorts, Movies on the Meadows from Cambridge, and other experiments such as the Lido Cinema from many years ago). Essentially, the Air Draft is a floating barge theatre, housing a performance venue in a dome-like structure. Previously used for live music and theatre, the intimacy of the space will certainly add an extra dimension to the programs hosted by it.
Previous years of the LSFF have shown films that go on to be enduring festival hits. Our 2017 Best Festival Short winner SALT & SAUCE screened last year after a Rising Star award at ESFF 2017, and also showed LITTLE SHIT (ESFF 2018), in addition to Best Scottish Short ESFF nominee JOHNNY THINKS.