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Ladies and Gentlemen … allow me to introduce the next generation of filmmakers. Once again, the Seattle International Film Festival is proud to present an astounding collection of short films—a record number of 141 this year. From animation to live-action, experimental to narrative, fiction to documentary, there is at least one short film at this year’s festival that can fit any conceivable category, genre, or taste. Not only do these films offer tantalizing glimpses of future talent but also a purer, more singular form of cinematic expression: no sub-plots, no minor characters, no digressions. A good short film must seduce, captivate, enthrall, and most of all entertain its audience all in less than thirty minutes—no easy task, but one in which every short film in this year’s festival performs with admirable ease. Any yet these simple joys are ever fleeting as, for many of these films, the festival offers the only chance to view them in a true theatrical setting. Every short film is eligible for both the Golden Space Needle Audience Award and the Jury Awards. The Golden Space Needle Audience Award will be given to one short film as determined by audience balloting. The winner will receive a Power Mac G5 dual drive with 2.0 GHz processor and a 23-inch Cinema Display (with VGA cord), courtesy of IrisInk and the Seattle Mac Store. They will also receive "After Effects" courtesy of Adobe through IRISINK and The MAC Store, and $1,000 of film stock from Eastman Kodak Company. The Jury Competition will choose a winner in the Live Action, Animation and Documentary category with cash prizes of $2500 awarded to each. We are very honored to have a two-time Golden Space Needle Award winner on this year’s jury—Jason Reitman, director of the recent box office hit THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, whose short films “In God We Trust” and “Consent” won the award in 2000 and 2004 respectively.
USA, 2006, 13 min.
Armed with her sketchbook, a young woman seeks refuge from her insomnia. The night is filled with people reluctantly in search of the company of strangers. …
USA, 2005, 25 min.
Love, sex, friendship and deceit are only a phone call away. …
USA, 2005, 3 min.
Things aren’t all that bad, are they? Jay Rosenblatt, along with narrator Garrison Keillor, take on the Jeanne Marie Beaumont poem. …
USA, 2006, 11 min.
On the anniversary of his wife's death, Sam recalls the past in order to decide how best to move forward. …
Scotland, 2005, 10 min.
Brownies make friends wherever they go! But what happens when Rosie's new troop runs afoul of the law? …
Hungary, 2005, 13 min.
Before dawn, people will rise, and put their hopes on the line. …
USA, 2005, 21 min.
A young man visits his expatriate father in Romania. Over the course of their daily outings he discovers just how much things have changed. …
USA, 2005, 8 min.
Experimental puppet artist Susan Simpson’s re-conception of the disaster narrative, which takes the form of both massive elemental destruction and personal tragedy. …
Australia, 2005, 12 min.
Sometimes we go to unimaginable lengths for our family. …
Australia, 2005, 3 min.
A unique animated film portraying Australia’s distinct outback environment and characters. …
USA, 2005, 10 min.
A teenage girl and her little brother embark on a very important errand during the strange, ethereal calm in the eye of a hurricane. …
Australia, 2006, 6 min.
A single father has a unique approach to raising his two-year old twin boys - choose a favorite! …
Spain, 2005, 10 min.
A man takes his girlfriend to a secluded amusement arcade in order to recapture their youth, but their perfect date is ruined when real teenagers show up. …
USA, 2005, 7 min.
A rabbi candidly shares the unspoken secrets of his trade as a grief-facilitator in this award winning animated film from Seattle filmmaker Sarah Jane Lapp. …
USA, 2005, 4 min.
Long hours, minimum wage, demanding customers, surrounded by grease – by the end of the day these fast food workers are at the end of their ropes, and liable to do anything. …
A vibrant and highly animated look at the aesthetics of clouds. …
France, 2005, 5 min.
A trip on the subway takes a turn toward the Kafkaesque. …
USA, 2005, 11 min.
A young Mexican-American boy’s gift for playing the violin brings his working class Latino neighborhood together in ways he never thought possible. …
Australia, 2006, 20 min.
Following the death of his abusive father, a teenage boy finds himself unprepared to take care of the family ranch, not to mention his overwhelmed mother. But the surprising arrival of a stranger forces him to approach everything differently. …
Netherlands, 2005, 27 min.
Marie continually searches for the father who left her. Is that him calling the old phone booth? …
USA, 2006, 7 min.
Dayna Hanson (of 33 Fainting Spells) relates her experience of trying to convert her car to run on biodiesel fuel, and performs an impromptu dance number in the alley behind a Chinese restaurant. …
Scotland, 2005, 11 min.
The fascinating account of a woman whose auditory hallucinations helped lead to her own diagnosis. …
USA, 2006, 8 min.
After her parents die in a tragic fire, a young girl is sent to an orphanage where she takes solace in drawing fiery visions. …
A teen couple experiences a carnivorous nightmare at a fast food restaurant. …
Ireland, 2005, 11 min.
A visit to a Dublin street market becomes a hilarious slice of urban life. …
A manipulation of time and space in the editing room gives this dance for two a unique twist. …
Canada, 2005, 10 min.
The full intensity and virtuosity of a performance by the preternaturally talented 17-year-old drummer Anders Erickson (of the band Inward Eye) is captured in this boundary-expanding music video. …
USA, 2005, 2 min.
Sunday morning breakfast takes on a new look. …
Spain, 2005, 14 min.
A retired circus performer is surprised to discover that his young son is embarrassed by him. He resorts to extreme measures to regain the boy’s heart. …
A woman wakes up on the floor of a small room, bound and blindfolded, with nothing but some videotaped instructions to tell her how she got there…. …
In this cyclical fairy tale, a man and a woman are cursed to forever be apart. …
When an office worker misses his bus, he spends the morning teaching a baby bird to fly. …
A rotating puppet theater provides a visually stunning (animated) array of scenes and performances for an unseen audience. …
Tired of the hidden death toll in Iraq, Tom Sadowski plants a flag for each dead soldier in his yard. …
USA, 2005, 5 min.
A gorgeous abstract stream of shapes and colors created through superimposition, direct painting and lyrical images. …
A girl awakens to discover her fourteenth birthday will be very special indeed. …
USA, 2006, 10 min.
As two sisters pick blackberries, the eldest turns the chore into a game of Monopoly. …
USA, 2005, 16 min.
Tired of wasting time on relationships that break up, one man decides to go for Full Disclosure on the first date. …
Fumi must live her life with a foot that continually attracts misfortune. …
USA, 2005, 18 min.
An impressionable young man finds hope and happiness in gelatin. …
Czech Republic, 2005, 5 min.
The origin of an iconic photograph is speculated upon. …
When a young girl rescues a seal, she meets a sea prince who gives her a mysterious shell. …
An exploration of the standards of beauty imposed on African-American girls today. …
USA, 2006, 4 min.
A beautifully shot portrait of a repressed marriage. set to the classic Nancy Wilson tune. …
USA, 2006, 6 min.
In this twisted sequel to the Oscar-nominated Guard Dog, Bill Plympton (I Married A Strange Person) animates the continuing adventures of an eager canine who wants nothing more than to be useful, but still leaves a bloody path of destruction in his wake. …
USA, 2005, 22 min.
On a snowy night, two adolescent girls outgrow the claustrophobic bounds of their small town, circa 1979. …
Canada, 2005, 5 min.
Literally sliced in half, a man fights a losing battle to keep himself together. …
USA, 2006, 30 min.
A glimpse into the lives of two children and three adults who keep secrets and act out intimate wants, in a piece that examines the awkwardness and specificity of human desire. …
The harshness of reality versus the comforts of an imaginary garden space. …
Scotland, 2005, 24 min.
Follow “Hatred,” a heavy metal band from Scotland whose average age is 11, as they prepare for their first public gig. …
A man’s ongoing quest for love becomes an end in and of itself, as the personals ads he habitually places seem to take on lives of their own. …
A Technicolor charge on horseback is mashed up with a series of early silent films from the Meliés brothers. …
United Kingdom, 2005, 15 min.
Two children in animal costumes conduct experiments in reviving a bee, with hopes of awakening their friend next. …
USA, 2006, 31 min.
An epic meditation on erosion and natural disasters composed of subtly deteriorating found footage, in some cases more than a century old, from filmmaker Bill Morrison (DECASIA). …
Canada, 2005, 20 min.
A shy, obsessive Japanese entomologist finds himself thrown into a plot straight out of a gangster movie when a pretty girl walks into life and runs off with his prized possession, an ultra-rare beetle purchased on the black market. …
Spain, 2005, 11 min.
Zombies and lobster bisque figure into this animated adaptation of a Stephen King story. …
A misfit artist proposes a film to an arts festival committee. …
USA, 2005, 14 min.
A young girl and her widowed mother engage in a messy battle of wills in front of the daughter’s sweet-natured boyfriend. …
An imaginary friend reflects upon his life and times. …
Old fashioned animation makes for a classical treat. …
USA, 2005, 23 min.
The long and colorful (and occasionally sordid) history of Superman, as told by the men who drew him. Also featuring the actors who played Lois Lane and Clark Kent in the original TV series. …
Austria, 2005, 17 min.
An iconic Western is transformed into a Greek tragedy in an impossibly kinetic re-photographing of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. …
South Korea, 2005, 15 min.
An ordinary job interview goes from bad to worse… to mortal combat! …
United Kingdom, 2005, 23 min.
Daniel’s big chance to get everything he wants—his dream, his love, a way out of his poor Buenos Aires Province—has finally arrived. But at what price? …
USA, 2005, 15 min.
Knights, immortal spirits, mysterious forests—Keats’ harrowing tale of passion, regret and self-doubt gains lush cinematic form. …
Austria, 2005, 9 min.
Nostalgic visions of family meals become more and more disturbed as the film stock grows increasingly discolored and decayed. …
A scarecrow’s life changes when he decides to befriend the birds. …
USA, 10 min.
The name of Meredith Hunter, the man killed in front of the stage at Altamont, has been almost totally forgotten. Filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground) seeks out what may be the final reminder of Hunter’s existence, an unmarked grave. …
Australia, 2005, 5 min.
Lucky finds himself in a bind—trapped in the trunk of a speeding car with no driver. …
Australia, 2005, 10 min.
A reclusive, light bulb-headed entomologist longs to complete his insect collection as the seasons pass outside. …
It’s just another day in the life of the headless, limbless, faceless and brainless. …
Canada, 2006, 10 min.
A beautifully animated history of Norman McLaren, one of the most significant abstract filmmakers to come out of Britain. …
Belgium, 2005, 14 min.
On a hot summer day, five adolescents seek refreshment by a river. Beautifully shot, with a deceivingly relaxed compositional style, MEANDER explores the expectant tensions that lurk just below the surface of adolescence. …
Latvia, 2005, 4 min.
A guardian angel facilitates a glimpse into the inner mechanisms of a dreamer in this stunning, disturbing film. …
USA, 2005, 17 min.
Desperate to meet her lover, a Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to baby-sit. …
The legendary Kenneth Anger takes on a certain celebrity cartoon mouse, in a satire that has strange echoes of his homoerotic underground classic SCORPIO RISING. …
All the things you wish you could say to your sister on her wedding day as she marries your ex-boyfriend. …
USA, 2005, 6 min.
Walking the streets of Seattle with a taste of different people and sights. …
Canada, 2005, 15 min.
A surreal tribute to her father – the legendary filmmaker Roberto Rossellini – written by and starring Isabella Rossellini. …
In 1933, photographer John Gutmann left a promising career as a painter in Germany to start a new life in the United States, and became an important link between European modernism and the burgeoning artistic culture of San Francisco. …
USA, 2005, 19 min.
When their car breaks down on the way to a rock show, two high school buddies discover that the end of summer is closer than they thought. …
Renowned animator Emily Hubley climbs the musical scale with whimsical, dreamy digressions into each note along the way. Music by Yo La Tengo. …
United Kingdom, 2005, 6 min.
A poor young man is doomed to spend the rest of his life in misery after a sordid encounter with his parents. Be warned: no film called “Oedipus” can end happily. …
A short animation about humorous aspects of oil production and consumption. …
USA, 2006, 41 min.
In this stunningly-photographed consideration of the 2000-mile border between the US and Mexico, filmmaker Bill Brown explores anxieties on both sides, and the increasingly dangerous obstacles to a successful crossing. …
Ireland, 2004, 8 min.
Three men candidly recount their personal experiences of adult circumcision. …
A dark secret is revealed, forcing Maria to make a choice that will change her family forever. …
Inspiration is a fickle mistress. …
United Kingdom, 2005, 2 min.
A ball, a park, a murder of crows—what could possibly go wrong with this match? …
An old man in Siberia faces reality and relives his past as he cleans exhibits in a laboratory. …
An afternoon of play for a mother and son is interrupted by lunchtime. …
A bicyclist zooms through life, not noticing anything until he’s hit by a car. …
USA, 2005, 20 min.
Can a video game called KUMA WAR be a new way to engage people on current events, or is it an unethical marketing gimmick that seeks to profit from the Iraq war? …
A mesmerizing stare at the most efficient terminal in the port of Vancouver, BC, with an appropriately hypnotic score from Tara Jane O’Neill. …
USA, 2006, 15 min.
Courtney needs a date to the prom in less than 10 days, but where to find one? Craig's List, of course! …
USA, 2005, 1 min.
Please wait for the light to change before crossing the street. …
A grassroots radio project for migrant workers and their families brings education, empowerment and independence to a community in need. …
Zillionaire playboy Eben Byers joins a metropolitan club where cocktails swizzled with radium are ballyhooed as “Nectar of the Gods.” …
With an arranged marriage pending, will one young vampire’s family destiny keep her from her true love? …
A poetic film about the choices a boy must face on his path to manhood on the reservation. …
A backwards celebration (in song!) of two icons of the American Western, John Wayne and Roy Rogers. …
George Bush and Colin Powell meet to decide the future of the world... …
Inspired by Akira Kurasawa's Dreams, a boy’s afternoon in a sandbox teaches him about artistic expression and perserverance. …
We all love Santa Claus, but 9-year-old Amelia loves him more. …
Australia, 2005, 19 min.
A young Mormon man gets a little too involved with his latest convert. When her husband comes home from prison, his true mission is uncovered. …
Ireland, 2005, 13 min.
James’ father uses Gaelic to speak to him secretly about his career in espionage. …
Ex-boyfriends meet at their favorite spot for a birthday drink, but one brings an unexpected guest. …
A filmmaker with exhibitionist tendencies does a little dance for the cameras. …
Like most kids, a young lamb tries to find acceptance among his peers. …
Canada, 2005, 12 min.
Seen through the lens of noted photographer Olivo Barbieri, perched in a helicopter high above the city, Las Vegas becomes even more unreal than it already appears—a gauzy, candy-colored city of toy buildings and miniature cars. …
An alternate reality as seen through three different perspectives. …
A group of young drug runners turn to the more lucrative field of human trafficking, only to discover that bigger profits come with greater costs. …
Deep inside the insulated, isolated world of a snow globe, an astronaut reaches out for the human contact that’s eluded him for so long. …
United Kingdom, 2005, 4 min.
A boy prepares himself for space exploration by walking around the streets of London. …
Indonesia, 2005, 15 min.
A quietly poignant exploration of one young man's journey of self-discovery. …
United Kingdom, 2005, 10 min.
When wrestling is more than a sport. …
United Kingdom, 2005, 14 min.
A recently paroled teenager takes an elderly man to the supermarket as part of her community service, and their day together connects them in unexpected ways. …
Detailed testimony from one of Seattle’s most stereotyped communities. …
Luxembourg, 2005, 10 min.
Bela Lugosi narrates this animated adaptation of the classic Poe tale. …
Switzerland, 2005, 18 min.
A physicist runs afoul of his peers when he declares that gravity no longer exists. In order to prove his theories, he sets off on a secret expedition to the point of zero gravity. …
A closeted Classics professor in a 1950s private school finds a student who really understands. …
One man’s nightmares take physical shape in a rising tide that seems to be taking the form of each and every figure in the crowd. …
Even in the segregated South, Tootie Pie and Claressa—two African-American girls—come from very different worlds. …
An exploration of the relationship between the painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and the avant-garde culture of Montmartre. …
Ireland, 2005, 6 min.
In this poignant documentary, a woman candidly reflects upon her aging, overweight body to her son. …
Senegal, 2005, 10 min.
Rappers in the burgeoning South African hip hop scene discuss their art, the local industry and the politics that inform their music. …
An animated short looks at many different times and places. …
A girl follows a trail of papers leading her to their writer. …
Netherlands, 2006, 6 min.
Set to an irresistible soundtrack of strumming, everyday objects and moments flash on screen while a pleasant flower wallpaper scrolls through the background. …
Denmark, 2005, 15 min.
A nursing mother is weaned by her 8-month-old baby. …
An animation of a poem by Sherman Alexie about growing up on the rez. …
Who gets to be Steve? A footrace to decide. …
During a day of hide-and-seek, a child meets a new playmate. …
USA, 2005, 9 min.
At twelve years old, Willy’s quiet bedroom is his favorite retreat. But when his Mom makes some changes in her life, Willy's bedroom transforms into a nightmarish place he has to endure.. …
Local filmmaker/dancer Gaelen Hanson (of 33 Fainting Spells) gives a thrilling performance for and with the camera. …
When do we know the difference between love and sex? A passionate young woman finds that she might be alone in her excited perception of a newly forged relationship. …
