Impossible film screenings

Hello, my paranoid friends!

Back in August, I’ve had the luck to attend a special screening of the Oscar-nominated animated short films 2015.
It was special because it was an impossible.com event.
What is impossible.com? A very very cool social network. Check it out, I’m sure you’ll love it.

I planned to write about it here, but the Power of Procrastination won once again and the new entry has never been written.
Until now.

On Tuesday evening, another screening took place in the very lovely Cafe Van Gogh (owned by a member of the above-mentioned social network) in London.
This was the time of the Oscar-nominated live-action short films 2015.

They were all so good I simply had to write something about it, so I took the chance to post a quick review of the animated shorts too.
This will make the entry quite long, but here they are anyway!

The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2015: Animation (2015)

1. Me and My Moulton
   by Torill Kove
   (Canada/Norway, 2014)All these three sisters want is a normal life, with stereotyped parents like all the other kids (while their mum and dad are eccentric architects) but, most of all, a bicycle.A cute, simple, colourful style to show how hard children’s life can be.
   We all know how embarrassing parents are, sometimes, right? But we love them anyway.
2. Feast
   by Patric Osborne
   (USA, 2014)Winston happily gets all the junk food leftovers until his owner sets himself up with a health fanatic lady. Will the humans’ love deprive Winston of his precious delicacies forever?It’s uber cute. It’s Disney. It’s goody-two-shoes. Of course it won.
3. The Bigger Picture
   by Daisy Jacobs
   (UK, 2014)Two brothers, one successful, the other not quite so, and their old mother who need someone to take care of her.Mural painting meets stop-motion.
   Technically charming, wistfully touching. Animation can be for grown-ups too, you know.
4. A Single Life
   by Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen, Marieke Blaauw
   (Netherlands, 2014)Pia finds a record that allows her to time-travel in her own life.Tragicomic but not oppressive at all. Good starting point to ponder a bit about our existence.
5. The Dam Keeper
   by Daisuke Tsutsumi, Robert Kondo
   (USA, 2014)The little pig makes sure the dam is working properly every morning before going to school. He’s always alone, the other animals bully him, until a new classmate arrives.Warm colours, cute puppet-like animals, a sweet story of friendship in a dreamy atmosphere. This is the one that makes you go ‘aww’.
6. Sweet Cocoon
   by Matéo Bernard, Matthias Bruget, Jonathan Duret, Manon Marco, Quentin Puiraveau
   (France, 2014)A quite curvy caterpillar needs help from a couple of cockroaches to enter her cocoon in order to become a wonderful butterfly.’French animation is always so good! Can’t wait to see the French one.’
   Ah, la déception!
   All I wrote in my notebook while I was watching this is ‘meh’.
7. Footprints
   by Bill Plympton
   (USA, 2014)A man chases a mysterious monster following the footprints he found outside his house.An antsy, sketchy style for a little dystopian gem.
   Paranoid Celluloid approved.
8. Duet
   by Glen Keane
   (USA, 2014)A boy and a girl dance through life, growing up to find love in their adulthood.Aesthetically very beautiful, for sure.
   As for the content, let’s see. Girl: pink, ballet, floating tutus. Boy: blue, skateboard, free climbing.
   ‘Nuff said.
9. Bus Story (Histoires de bus)
   by Tali
   (Canada, 2014)This lady’s dream is not to be rich and famous. She doesn’t want jewels and power. What she really needs to be truly happy is to become a school bus driver. Waving at everyone, asking every single passenger what they brought for lunch, THOSE are the great joys of life.The animation itself is nothing extraordinary but, for some reason, I simply love this one. Every now and then it comes to my mind and I start giggling.

The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2015: Live Action (2015)

1. Parvaneh
   by Talkhon Hamzavi
   (Switzerland, 2012)Parvaneh needs to go all the way to Zurich from the small Swiss town where she works to send money to her family in Afghanistan.
   It’s a task harder than she expected, but she faces it with determination and a new friendship helps her feeling, even if just a little bit, at home.You can’t help but feel sympathy for this young lady, struggling all alone in a country that couldn’t be more different from hers.
2. Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak)
   by Hu Wei
   (France/China, 2013)Families of Tibetan nomads gather to have their photos taken in front of backdrops the photographer brought for the occasion.
   Traditional clothes are mixed with fashion brand ones and the backgrounds available in the catalogue vary from Tiananmen Square to the historical Potala Palace to Disneyland.Of all the shorts, this was the one that brought me to tears.
   As in the first short, cultures mixes together as the world changes. But, while is Parvaneh that chooses consciously to stop wearing the veil and tries lipstick and alcohol, here the villagers are forced in a new society that clashes with their traditions. Modernisation happens around them, whether they want it or not,  and all that is sacred and beautiful fades in concrete and prepackaged pseudo-culture.
   The moment the backdrop is rolled up to reveal the real landscape behind is truly heartbreaking, even more than one was already expecting.
3. The Phone Call
   by Mat Kirkby
   (UK, 2013)Heather sits at her desk, the phone rings, she answers.
   She is ready, with a notepad and a pen, to help whoever there is on the other end because that’s what she’s there for.
   But Stan doesn’t need her to tell him that everything will be ok. He just wants someone to chat with while he waits for the pills to do their job.Very clever direction that guides your emotions and plays with them.
   Sad but sweet, heartbreaking but in a way that, somehow, you are fine with.
   Life can be painful, sometimes, and we need to accept it.
4. Aya
   by Oded Binnun, Mihal Brezis
   (France/Israel, 2012)While Aya is at the airport to pick up someone, a driver asks her to please hold his sign while he’s away for a moment. The client mistakes her for the one waiting for him. Apparently, saying ‘I’m not your driver, he should be back in a moment.’ is too boring for her. With an amused smirk, she drives the interesting stranger to Jerusalem herself.He is a jurist for a piano competition. He’s Scandinavian, professional, polite, he wears blue, he’s the Reason.
   She pretends to be a driver just for fun, she abandoned the one she was supposed to pick up at the airport, cheeky and curious, she wears red, she’s the Instinct.
   Brain and Heart, strangers to each other, together in a car.
5. Boogaloo and Graham
   by Michael Lennox
   (UK, 2014)Belfast, 1978.
   Malachy and Jamesy receive two chicks from their father. They take good care of them and love them. Who needs something banal like a dog when you can have chickens? It may not be enough to shelter them from what’s happening around them, but even with soldiers scattered in the streets there can be a bit of tenderness in every-day life.Simple, realistic and cute.
   The audience burst in laughs at the swear words and quite colourful expressions innocently used by the children.
   Little fun fact: The kids’ dialogues, and only those, have subtitles.

   Feast and Phone Call won the Oscar in the respective categories, but the Polenta Awards go to The Dam Keeper for Animation and Butter Lamp for Live Action.