Over the years writing and operating this site, I’ve always been one to cover local events and I’ve been doing so before the crazy plethora of interviews I’m doing all of next week. I check out East Van Showcases from time to time, I enjoy MAMM and am looking forward to the next one coming up, I never miss Crazy 8’s, and I’m always getting a chance to cover anything with a short film or a few, because short films seem to be the majority of content being showcased at events. But what if someone has missed one or a few of those films? What then? Well, that’s what Sunday Shorts is for. This particular showcase shows films from festivals you may have missed, or films that people liked but couldn’t find them anywhere. But I’ve already covered its origin in the past, so let’s get into this year’s showcase. First let me give some shoutouts to Christopher Logan for hosting this, everyone who helped out and all those who got their work showcased. Here’s what happened last night!
Meet and Greet with Drinks – A great way to get to meet other people such as the filmmakers and whoever was interested in the event. For me it was a great way to meet a photographer to take the picture for this article. A bit long in time, but at least there was a small setup of a bar serving gin cocktails, plenty of mingling even with a lack of attendance, and at least the theatre’s real snack bar was open. 5 minutes before the actual screening, there was a pre-show consisting of quick simple videos of filmmakers, film industry types, business owners, moviegoers, and non-film types who explained why they loved short films as well as films. I can’t exactly say how many were featured but there were certainly a lot.
Part 1 – To start off the showcase, Christopher himself opened up by going down the aisle and singing in a soprano voice that the show was about to start. He then gave an award for best actor to somebody who had to leave early. Then the showcase began with Chris getting interviewed for 3 minutes by a student at VFS. Then the showcase officially started with a short cartoon from Wildbrain called Lake Erie, where two delinquents tease a shy boy named Kip who is too nervous to do a lot of things that rowdy bad boys do. Me, I was prone to reckless behaviour even for someone who was shy. Anyways, Kip ends up having to save his dog, Molly who walks into a creepy old lighthouse where the ghost of Captain Wiley resides. This one was weird, creepy, but pretty cool. Then there was the first episode of Honestly Charlotte, the web series. For the first episode, Charlotte Chandler has an interview with her latest employer and honestly admits how bad she is at working. The whole thing felt like it went a little too long, but it was still pretty funny. As for Three Days, that was an interesting concept of a woman struggling in an acting course and being trapped in a jail cell. But I already saw it, so I’ll go straight to At The Strawberry Stand which is an elaborate love story about a man who meets a lady selling strawberries at the roadside and it forms into a long lovely romance, or does it? That was both funny and disturbing, and apparently it was labeled Best Romance. Next was Old Fox, a story about an old man in a cabin with his taxidermied animals and how he believes they’re messing with his stuff. It got Best Micro Short, was kind of funnyish, and gave me some Chuck Testa vibes. On the more serious and saddening side was 40th which talked about culture in Iran as a woman named Saghar had to deal with issues like pregnancy, marriage, and not being allowed to celebrate anything until after the age of 40. Then came Quarantine Fling, which focused on a lonely man in Quarantine who makes up a girlfriend to please his parents, but I’ve seen it already. It did get Best Comedy. It was followed by the best Indigenous film, Ajjiglingiluktaaqtugut (We Are All Different) which was a stop motion type film while Ink people narrated stories about family. Great educational content, but it felt a bit too long for me. Finally for the final movie in part 1 was the film with the most fitting title, Final Touches, where a makeup artist named Julia works on a low-to-no budget film with a rage-fuelled fast-paced director played by Corey Chadwick Malone. Eventually Julia can’t take more of this bad minimal production and goes berserk. It was funny and relatable, but as someone who is friends with a guy who does low-to-no budget films, I can only hope that nobody he works with slays him on set along with whatever crew he has, myself included.
Intermission – Not much different from the meet and greet earlier, but Christopher was handing out star-shaped containers full of mints supplied by Front Row Insurance Brokers Inc. Everyone seemed to be talking about the films and what other stuff they were up to.
Part 2 – It started off with the best animation, Unnecessary Things, which I’ve already covered at another festival, so let’s go into some other films, shall-a we? For the next one, we got Happy Place, which to the average person is a film about two women dancing in different locations in front of a light blue backdrop. To the audience who actually understands the concept, it’s a Lesbian couple who dance to express their love, and it’s a great experimental short by the impressive Maxime Beauchamp. He serves great short films and great meals (he was a waiter at a restaurant I ate at). Then came Nectar the Best Horror, but I’m not sure if it is a horror or not. It was relaxing at first, then it intensified, and got freaky and emotional. It was about a man left alone on an island who had an abusive father in his childhood, and it affected him so badly he didn’t want to hurt his wife and soon-to-be daughter, but he decides to escape the island and return home. Next was Alledoags, which was super short and simple, about an elderly lady who remembered her husband who had a boat. Not much to say about it, but I got some heartwarming vibes. Then it concluded with something I already saw, Who The Hell is Nigel?. However there were some technical issues with the final film and everyone had to wait a while to see the conclusion but it was worth it, and it was the Best Documentary.
That was about it for this showcase. Using a small level of films to be found anywhere and a severe lack of attendance made this showcase feel like little to nothing. Plus I felt it may have needed work specially given the technical glitch, and the guy behind me was snoring a bit too loudly through nearly the whole thing, but all in all I did have some fun. My only other issue is content I’ve already seen as I’m not one for duplicate coverage, but I still enjoyed watching these and hope to see some more of these showcases in the near future.