World Wide Short Film Festival Report #3

Well today marked the end of the World Wide Short Film Festival here in Toronto and I managed to sneak in one more program of films, this time the sci-fi themed set, Out There. Alas, this was the weakest of the four programs I caught. This is not to say that there weren't solid films included - there were - but there were also a handful that just did absolutely nothing for me. Thus, I shall commence ignoring them now.

Of note in this program were a trio of films starring familiar faces. Stellan Skarsgaard took the lead role in The Eiffel Tower, a Twilight Zone inspired story about a man who wakes from a dream to find that the world has changed in an unsettling way: famous novelists from his past have become scientists while famous scientists have become novelists. Thus the theory of relativity was set down by Jules Verne and what he knew as The Eiffel Tower was actually created by Rudyard Kipling and is located in London. The script is Serling-lite but Skarsgaard, as always, is excellent. The former X Files fan in me - those last couple seasons absolutely destroyed my enthusiam for the show in any form - was happy to see William B. Davis (aka the Cigarette Smoking Man) turn up in Cost of Living as a man dying of cancer trying to arrange financing on a new synthetic body. The short plays like a scene from something larger and, not surprisingly, there is talk of developing it into a feature. And last of the famous name droppers: Blake's Junction 7. This one's basically an all pro fan film taking characters from cult 70's British sci-fi show Blake's 7 and dropping them into an all night restaurant next to a British freeway. I've never seen the original show so I can't comment on how true it is but the film style is very 70's and how can you not enjoy something starring Mark Heap (Spaced, Green Wing), Martin Freeman (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Office), and Mackenzie Crook (The Office)?

By far the best film of the night, though, was Shane Acker's superb piece of animation titled simply 9. Just fantastic on all counts ... go check the website now.