Guerrilla Shorts

So yesterday night I went along to the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds to watch "Guerilla Shorts" a collection of short films and an event held once ever two months.

Last night's short films included "Deep Six" a re-edited narrative from a Hollywood b-film in which repeated footage give the viewer the opportunity to really analyse what they are seeing instead of forgeting or overlooking subtle clues like in usual films. The film had been made by contact printing hand-photocopied strips of overhead transparencies onto 35mm film.

The second film was called "Necrology (Roll Call of the Dead)" a video of the late-1960s general public ascending an escalator in Grand Central Station, New York. The film shows them disappearing into a shadowy abyss with the suggestion of the people on their way to hell. The idea of the film is to leave the viewer pondering their fate.
"La Jette" is a fictional film about a man's life in Paris after the Third World War. He is used in experiements to travel back through time in order to get provisions from the past and bring them to the future to help their survival. He encounters a woman in his memories during the experiements and they share wonderful but mysterious moments. The entires film is made up of images held for a few seconds with an accompanying third person narrative and music. The only bit of footage is of the woman opening her eyes from sleeping. I have to say I the film gave the impression to me as just an excuse to film a woman who the director was besotted by!

After the intermission "UNdone" was shown. A 5 minute animation about an Irish scientist orbiting the Earth while the world collapses into nuclear Armageddon. Only the heads of state can flee and make a new life living on Mars.

"The Man Who Planted Trees" is a film I think everyone should see. It is an animation about a man who lives up in the French Alps as a sheppard who plants 100 acorns every day and eventually plants and grows an entire forest which the people of France can enjoy and love. It showed how man can make a possitive impression on climate change and that happiness can be found in even the most "dull" of lifestyles.

Finally a film which did not appear in the program, an animation about a carpenter and the rocking chair that he makes. It dragged a bit I have to say until the end where the director took the mick out of modern art. The art gallery in the film shows off stereotypical modern art such as a blank, white canvas with an admirer bent over looking through a magnifying glass at it. A carefully and cheekily placed second admirer behind the first did make a few eagle-eyed viewers laugh.