BEST FROM EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2006 (Total Dur. 70m)

Penpusher
Director Guillaume Martinez, France, 2006, 8m
A young man sits quietly reading his book on the Paris Metro. A young woman is sitting next to him. Something quite unexpected occurs between them, in full view of all the other passengers.
Awarded a Silver Bear in 2006 at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival

Born to Run
Director Scott Graham, UK, 2006, 14m
Starring local people in the lead roles, the film follows a 17-year-old boy racer and his girlfriend who are falling in love in the same way the boy’s parents did at his age. While the teenagers race to be alone together, the parents spend the evening apart reflecting on the choices they made when they were 17.

The Really Terrible Orchestra
Director Edward Brooke-Hitching, UK, 2005,10m
"A triumph of enthusiasm over incompetence” was how the jury panel of the EIFF described Edward Brooke-Hitching’s short film. The Really Terrible Orchestra provides refuge for the cream of Edinburgh’s musically disadvantaged, where the use of sheet music is discouraged for being “too distracting”.
Winner of the Short Scottish Documentary Award, supported by Bailie Gifford, at EIFF 2006

Ex Memoria
Director Josh Appignanesi, UK, 2006, 15m
Appignanesi was inspired by visits to his grandmother to make a film that attempts to capture events from the viewpoint of the dementia sufferer. Appignanesi's first feature Song of Songs premiered at EIFF 2005, and received a Special Commendation for the Michael Powell Award for Best British Film.

Death of the Revolution
Directors Ben and Chris Blaine, UK, 2006, 6m
When Tony is told off for stealing a pencil, his ten-year old logic seethes at the injustice. What course of action is open to him other than to inspire a juvenile revolt? With truth, justice and his comrade pupils marching by his side, what can possibly stop him? Recently completed Hallo Panda through the Cinema Extreme scheme, the Blaine’s run the Shooting People Mobile Cinema, a travelling showcase of shorts by talented new filmmakers across the UK.

Motordrom
Director Joerg Wagner, Germany, 2006, 9m
The world of the hell riders in their wooden barrel: men and motorbikes, speed and stunts, gasoline and adrenaline. A dying fairground attraction, portrayed in a thrilling homage with 5000 rounds per minute.

Rabbit
Director Run Wrake, UK, 2005, 8m
Run Wrake’s animated film Rabbit won the McLaren Award for new British animation at EIFF 2006. It’s a dream like but dark story of lost innocence and the random justice of nature, told with curious images from a distant childhood.


WOMEN - PART ONE (Total Dur. 115m)

Mother
Director Sian Heder, USA, 2005, 17m
Desperate to be rid of her toddler in order to have an affair, a dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to baby-sit and ends up getting much more than she bargained for. Mother is a dark and funny look at neglect and what it really means to get what we want. 
Mother has been shown at film festivals across the US and screened at the 2006 London Film Festival. 

Me & Her
Director Sarah Tripp, UK, 2006, 14m
Coleen works as a chambermaid in an inner city hotel. Damien has reluctantly taken a job alongside her during his summer holiday. Whilst killing time together Coleen and Damien have discovered an unexpected attraction to each other. During their last shift they fumble their way through hangovers, hovering and personal insecurities until they finally confront the significance of their last working day together.
Me & Her was jointly commissioned by the UK Film Council, Scottish Screen and Glasgow Media Access Centre.

The Dinner (Le Diner)
Director Cecile Vernant, France, 2006, 13m
Clara and Julien meet for their first date at a restaurant. Her nervousness is compounded by the calls he makes on his mobile phone. She, a lovely secretary, tries hard to seduce him whilst feeling ill at ease in the restaurant environment. He, a young diplomat, is restless and tries everything to cut the evening short.
Le Diner has screened at Hull International Film Festival, and the London Film Festival.

A Map With Gaps
Director Alice Nelson, UK, 2006, 26m
A Map with Gaps is an account of a journey made by the director’s father through Soviet Russia in the early nineteen-seventies. Essentially a catalogue of minor disasters, this is a story that demonstrates that fact can indeed be stranger than fiction and sometimes the grey area in between is the most interesting place to explore, particularly if you forgot to bring a map.
Alice Nelson has recently directed Losing Myself, 4 x 3min Wonders for Channel 4.

Ma Boy
Director Amy Neil, UK, 2006, 10m
Life is difficult enough for 15-year-old Isla, living with her mother, boyfriend and baby. Tensions rise when Mum Ali starts flirting with boyfriend Gav, and the troubled teenager takes matters into her own hands in a shocking climax.
Amy Neil won a BAFTA for short Can’t Stop Breathing, 2005.

The Banker
Director Hattie Dalton, UK, 2005, 12m
The Banker is efficient at his job – obsessively collecting, storing and delivering deposits at the sperm bank. Each day the banker delivers the donations to his beloved nurse at the fertility clinic – proud to see her satisfied with the daily quota. Crippled by fear, he lacks the courage to ask her out. Surely there is a way he can express his devotion? A black comedy about unrequited love on a grand scale.
The Banker – starring Michael Sheen – won the 2005 BAFTA for short film, and is now on the international festival circuit.

Wasp
Director Andrea Arnold, UK, 2003, 23m
An absorbing drama starring Danny Dyer (Human Traffic) as the childhood boyfriend of a single mother (Natalie Press) living on a rundown housing estate. When Dave (Dyer) reappears in Zoe's life, the young mum enjoys the flirtation with her old flame but fears the attraction will end abruptly when he discovers she has children. However, Zoe's desire to rediscover her freedom has repercussions.
Academy Award winner for Best Short Film 2003
Set in Glasgow, Andrea Arnold’s debut feature Red Road won the Prix de Jury at Cannes Film Festival 2006.


ANIMATION (Total Dur. 68)

The Runt
Director Andreas Hykade, Germany, 2006, 10m
The Runt appears to be a deceptively simple film, but rumbling beneath are a variety of deep and emotional themes ranging from loss of innocence, ritual, responsibility and death.   The Runt is the final part of Hykade’s country trilogy that includes We Lived in Grass (1995) and Ring of Fire (2000). The trilogy deals with Hykade’s childhood in the Bavarian countryside and has received awards and acclaim around the world for their startling, uncompromising insights into the deep, dark recesses lurking beneath the flesh. Hykade is currently working on an animated feature called Jesus.

Famine
Director Hugo Cuellar, UK, 2006, 9m
Winter… The streets of Insect City echo with the hungry cries of its starving inhabitants. When a cannibal starts preying on the weakened insects, a small fly is framed for the heinous crime. Can he save them from the growing menace about to engulf the city?
Nominated for the McLaren Award at EIFF 2006

Slurpophobia
Director Sigga Bjorg Sigurdardottir, UK, 2006,5m
Sigga's disquieting drawings and animations demonstrate situations between creatures that look like people or animals but do not have to be either. They simply exist to demonstrate a situation or a state of mind.

Oompie Ka Doompie
Director Mandy McIntosh, UK, 2006,19m
Oompie Ka Doompie is a hybrid animated journey to 1970s Johannesburg. Animator/Director Mandy McIntosh uses 2 and 3D animation combined with video to examine the visual detail of her family’s experiences as white immigrants during Apartheid. The work skillfully blends materials in a way that underlines the separateness of black and white life, the naivety of the family and what they brought back to Scotland when they eventually left. Mandy McIntosh is an award-winning artist and animator based in Glasgow.

Guy 101
Director Ian W. Gouldstone, UK, 2004, 8m
A graduation piece from the Royal College of Art, Guy 101 tells the tale of a man who hears a story about a hitchhiker from the other side of the Internet. “Guy 101 is a true story about someone I met on the Internet. The film is a response to experiencing a very human tale through such a cold medium. By using graphical user interfaces as a narrative filmic tool, it attempts to inject some humanity into the banal utilitarian imagery of modern computers."
Guy 101 was the Winner of the Best Short Animation BAFTA 2007

Dad’s Dead
Director Chris Shepherd, UK, 2004, 6m
A compelling story of friendship and denial, told through a series of ghostly reminiscences and visual flashbacks of a young man’s fragmented memories from the past. As the story unfolds hero worship turns to revulsion, as the web of deception and violence that Johnny creates is revealed, pulling narrator and audience into his destructive wake.
Winner of Best Short Film at the 2004 British Animation Awards
Winner of Best Animation at 2003 British Independent Film Awards
Nominated for Best Animation Short at BAFTA Film Awards 2004

Who I Am and What I Want
Directors David Shrigley and Chris Shepherd, UK, 2005,7m
A scribbled, strangely funny but highly unsettling examination of the human condition. The story of a man who bares his emotions, hang ups and desires in all of their dysfunctional absurdity then leaves us to assemble not only his identity but to question our own.

We Believe in Happy Endings
Directors Monika Forsberg and Susie Sparrow, UK, 2006, 4m
At the party, humans, animals and ‘other-worldly’ beings dance the night away. A textured collage of drawn and digital 2D illustration with DV live-action. Forsberg’s film His Passionate Bride (Animus Films for C4, 2004) was nominated for BAFTA Best Animated Short.


DOCUMENTARIES (Total Dur. 74)

Civil Status (Grajdanskoe Sostoyanie)
Director Alina Rudnitskaya, Russia, 2005, 29m
An observational documentary about the sometimes bizarre, sometimes absurd daily happenings at the Marriage Palace, a civil registry office in St. Petersburg, where people from all walks of life come to record the most significant events in their lives - marriages, divorces, births and deaths. Civil Status is another exceptional film from the St.Petersburg Documentary Film Studio. Filmed in grainy black and white, without commentary, Civil Status opens a unique window on contemporary Russian society.

South of Ten
Director Liza Johnson, USA, 2006, 10m
Liza Johnson's poetic, experimental short documentary South of Ten juxtaposes ten surrealistic and poignant sequences from individual lives caught up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. These include: a man locating a trombone amid a pile of rubble, a relief worker gazing at the ocean from beneath a moving house, its owner watching from her (now mobile) living room, a girl absconding from a cluster of temporary tent like shelters, and six additional haunting scenes.

Mother
Director Christoph Steger, UK, 2006, 7m
Mother is an undertaker. She has a loud voice, an expressionless face, and huge square glasses. The simplicity and directness with which she has been animated fits the robustness she exudes. For Mother, it's no frills or smooth talk; you should grant the dead their peace. In an in-depth interview, she talks about her life among the dead with touching consideration. For example, she admits that she initially had to get used to their presence, but now she lives upstairs from them, "so they are not alone."

Holocaust Tourist
Director Jess Benstock, UK, 2006, 10m
A wry animated documentary about how Holocaust tourism distorts history. A whistle stop tour from Auschwitz hot-dogs to Krakow's kitsch Judaica. Filmmaker Jes Benstock encounters a range of characters involved in the tourist industry and uses animation to help uncover the way tourism and tourists are changing the way we understand the difficult past.

The Seal (Hylje)
Director Miia Tervo, Finland, 2005, 8m
The Seal is an essayistic, contemplating and immensely visual film, where the image is left room to tell. The landscapes of Lapland, the herds of reindeer and the ice expose the landscapes of the mind of the main character as she lets go with her kick sledge on the smooth snow and tells her story. What happened to the young woman in the hospital is left up to the viewer’s sensitivity, but it is something so difficult and personal that the course of her life changes, and the experience causes her to make surprising choices.

Black Sheep
Director Paul Hamilton, UK, 2006, 10m
Combining photographs, cine and video footage from family archives and present day interviews with his parents and siblings, Edinburgh based filmmaker Paul Hamilton wonders what it is to be a Black Sheep. This short documentary takes the audience on an emotional journey through the filmmaker's youth and the rocky relationship with his family.


SOUND & MUSIC (Total Dur. 66)

Tune In
Director Esther Johnson, UK, 2006, 14m
A portrait of the fascinating world of amateur radio operators, better known as HAMS. Dealing with the politics of space and social communication, Tune Inblends documentary and abstract audio to reflect on the use of DIY radio equipment in an ever-changing modern world.

Harrachov
Directors Matt Hulse and Joost Van Veen, UK, 2006, 10m
Combining live action, stop-frame animation and a kinetic sculpture, Harrachov explores the effect of an arcane force that, like a black hole or immensely powerful electromagnet, exerts a far-reaching and irresistible power upon certain objects and materials, wilfully seducing, centralizing and internalising them.

Qaeda Quality Question Quickly Quickly Quiet
Director Lenka Clayton, UK, 2003, 20m
The 4,100 words from George W. Bush's infamous 'Axis of Evil' speech are spliced together in alphabetical order to create a snapshot of the presidential rhetoric and obsessions of the administration post September 11.

Introduction to Wildflowers
Directors Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman, UK, 2007, 14m
Interview with grass roots Detroit activists in this film by Lucky Kitchen, an award-winning, independent source for fine arts, design and critical thinking including audio art, electronic and electro acoustic sound, documentary, and neo-modernist utopian constructions.

Rubber Johnny
Director Chris Cunningham, UK, 2005, 8m
Johnny is a hyperactive, shape-shifting mutant child, kept locked away in a basement. With only his feverish imagination and his terrified dog for company, he finds ways to amuse himself in the dark.
Featuring music by legendary electronic composer, Aphex Twin.


AMERICAN SHORTS (Total Dur. 56m)

Happiness
Director Sophie Barthes, USA, 2006, 11m
What if happiness was for sale? One evening, after work, Iwona buys a box of happiness in a strange discount store and has to decide what to do with it. A straight-faced comedy with Polish-American screen legend Elzbieta Czyzewska shot in Boston and New York City. The film has screened at Sundance and 40 other festivals worldwide. 

Frank Film
Directors Frank and Caroline Mouris, USA, 1973, 9m
This 1973 classic short is an animated autobiography of its author, Frank Mouris. The film received an Academy Award and was selected in 1996 for inclusion in the American National Film Registry. Because of its innovative and energetic use of collage, the film has exerted an influence on succeeding generations of animators.

Have You Seen This Man
Directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, USA, 2003, 18m
Have You Seen This Man? introduces us to New York conceptual artist Geoff Lupo, who uses telephone-pole ads to peddle individual toothpicks and crackers (to strangely enthusiastic buyers/collectors). In this documentary short, filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck capture the candid humor and poignancy of Lupo's seemingly absurd interactions. Boden and Fleck recently co-wrote and co-directed the Oscar nominated feature Half Nelson.

The Drift
Director Kelly Sears, USA, 2007, 8m
A mysterious disappearance and a space journey gone awry launches the counter-cultural revolution at the end of the 1960s. Obsessively collected images found in thrift stores and flea markets are animated to create an alternate American aeronautical and cultural history. Through the gaps in these isolated moments of time, The Drift collages together a history of expansion and the desire to push too far, too fast.

Forgetting Betty
Directors James Anderson, Robert Postrozny, USA, 2006, 10 m
Forgetting Betty is an affecting short drama that weighs the joys of living life against the fears of aging when a 96-year-old widow spends a fleeting day with her grandson. Forgetting Betty was the winner of the award for best short film at the Chicago international Film Festival 2006, and also screened at Rotterdam International Film Festival.


1ST ANNIVERSARY: BEST FROM EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 (Total Dur. 104m)

Death to the Tinman
Director Ray Tintori, USA, 2007, 12m
An adaptation of the original story of the Tinman of Oz. It depicts the unknown, dark, and romantic story of how the Tinman lost his limbs, his heart, his lover – and how he fought to get his life back.

The Suburban Train (Elektryczka)
Director Maciej Cuske, Poland, 2005, 18m
This observational documentary is like a journey through Russian society. A wide spectrum of people, situations, behaviours. Funny, witty, refreshing.

Over the Hill
Director Peter Baynton, UK, 2007, 8m
The elderly residents of the Over the Hill Home are passing away the years in a leisurely fashion. Life is rosy, though rather slow. That is, until one particular cunning trio discovers a secret so sinister it changes their understanding of elderly care forever...
Winner of the McLaren Award for New British Animation.

200,000 Phantoms
Director Jean-Gabriel Periot, France, 2007, 10m  
The Atomic-Bomb Dome – a massive form that stands in silence. The film presents almost 600 photographs from 1914 to 2006 showing the continuing existence of the dome before and after the war to the accompaniment of poetic laments.

Milan
Director Michaela Kezele, Germany & Serbia, 2007, 22m
Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO air raids: two brothers make plans to play hide and seek in the forest. As Milan gets to the meeting point on time, his brother is fighting for his life. As Milan starts looking for him, he surprisingly finds someone else…

The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island
Director James Griffith, UK, 2006, 24m
When jaded nice guy Herb McGwyer agrees to play a one-off exclusive gig on lottery winner Charles Heath’s Wallis Island, he is taken on a journey that ultimately re-ignites his passion for music.


WOMEN - PART 2 (Total Dur. 51m)

Icicle Melt
Director Amy Neil, UK/Sweden, 2006,18m
A moving look at one woman's swift journey from the heights of passion to the depths of despair beautifully shot within the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

Water
Director Laila Pakalnina, Latvia, 2006, 12m
Maria decides to go for a swim in the local pool even though it looks deserted in this atmospheric and offbeat film.

Phantom Canyon
Director Stacey Steers, USA, 2006, 9m
An intricate animation created from over 4000 hand-made collages incorporating the photographs from Edward Muybridge’s ‘Human and Animal Locomotion’, first published in 1887.

How to Save a Fish from Drowning
Director Kelly Neal, UK, 2006 12m
A quirky documentary about the death of white rural America told through the voices of three old men fishing on a frozen lake.