Three articles to watch out for today: first, in the Washington Post:
This weekend’s inaugural DC Shorts Film Festival kicks off Friday at 7 with a meet-the-filmmakers party at the Poste Brasserie in the Hotel Monaco, 555 Eighth St. NW. Screenings of the 37 films, selected by jury from more than 70 submissions from around the world, will take place Saturday at 4, 7 and 10 at the 130-seat Flashpoint Arts Center, 916 G St. NW (Metro: Metro Center), followed by an awards breakfast on Sunday at 10 at Flashpoint.
The festival is the brainchild of Jon Gann, an award-winning local filmmaker and graphic designer, who says he grew tired of the all-too-common view that the short-form film is the “bastard stepchild” of the cinema world. At the moment, what he hopes will become an annual festival consists mainly of work by young filmmakers (artists whose writing abilities, Gann notes, typically exceed the production values of their project), but he hopes to someday include work by more established names. “These people have potential,” he says, “and showing the work of emerging artists is always important.”
Tickets are $12 per screening session or $30 for an all-day pass, and are available online at http://www.dcshorts.com. Call 202-393-4266.
Okay, so I’m not mentioned in that one. Big deal, I’m not a publicity hound by any means. They also list it in their entertainment section.
Especially after the Northwest Current (I don’t have a transcript, sorry) featured a photo of me on the front page AND inside to accompany the article about DC Shorts. I haven’t seen it yet, and I can only imagine that I look like a big, fat, dork.
Thirdly, the Washington City Paper has a little writeup about the festival this weekend:
“D.C. SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL” It’s not easy being the little guy: You’re always getting butted in front of in the lunch line, pushed around in the locker room, and picked last in gym. One would think that the film community–which is almost entirely comprised of former sci-fi and comic-book geeks who had their asses handed to them on a regular basis in junior high–would have a more compassionate understanding of the short, given the bullying the genre has received at the hands of the almighty feature film. But, according to local filmmaker Jon Gann, shorts have yet to receive their due. “Of the dozens of film festivals I have attended around the world, only a handful showed respect and appreciation to shorts filmmakers,” Gann says. “Many festivals, including so-called independent-friendly ones, have turned into corporate PR events, only screening films with commercial possibilities.” So, in the interest of keeping it real, Gann and his collaborator Gene Cowan have organized the D.C. Shorts Film Festival, featuring 36 films from both inside and outside the Beltway. Though the six categories that the films are broken down into are virtually indistinguishable, each of the three programs include shorts covering a variety of topics, ranging from the more traditional (politics, relationships, homelessness) to the not-so-much (door-to-door pencil salesmen, nut allergies). A highlight of the festival’s batch of local entries is Gann and Cowan’s Signs, which follows the street-sign influenced journey of a self-absorbed city boy along 7th Street NW, and Someone & Someone, Inc., Rohit Colin Rao’s satire of the American corporate environment. (MB) (Flashpoint Arts Center–Sat., 9/11)
