Sadly my time at Leeds this year was curtailed by home and work commitments so my time at the cinema this year is less than I had hoped. The prices have also skyrocketed which doesn't help. Back around 2008 when I first started going a bit silly and watching as many films as I could, there would be LIFF passes available for something around £70. These days a full pass will knock you back £340, and that's before 2 weeks of train travel on top.
And one of my £10 purchased tickets was wasted anyway due to a run of traffic jams, delayed trains and missed connections making me over an hour late for the first film on my list, Stranger Eyes. I keffled and had a bowl of hot ramen instead at the nearby Bento Box.
LIFF Shorts - Winning Films
So I coseyed down in Everyman for a curated selection of the supposed best short films of the festival, as voted on by the judges.
The Rider not the Horse - Chile
Utilizing an orchestra as a backing track, The Rider shows the Doma India technique of bonding with horses; a man skilled in the art gets very up close and personal to a pack of wild horses, taming them completely and then leading them on a gallop into the sunset. It moved from abstract to wierd to really quite touching in the course of five minutes. 7
This Madness of Loving - Leb
Abstract and overly-long, a simple film animating the dance moves of a man in a darkened room somewhere, occasionally lighting up the drab with traced chalk lines. It didn't move me much. 4
Beso de Lengua - Mex
Two young gay men hit it off just a bit too much on their first date, somehow ending up in hospital from making too many facial clicking sounds, or perhaps just sucking each other's faces off. Its difficult to tell. 7
Paula Says Hi - UK
Paula - or Paul when not in her alter-ego form lives quietly and alone in a care-worn flat. Seemingly with little contact to the outside world and living with cerebral palsy, they show us a glimpse of the thing that brings passion to their life. Sometimes Paul and Paula appear side by side as two people discussing their love of cosplaying, and how it helps them bring meaning to their lives. Heartwarming cinema. 8
At that very moment - Arg
An intriguing experimental film where a young Argantinian girl is trusted with a video camera and so uses it to narrate the small but growing world around her; brother and parents, toys, bedrooms, house, and the little village where it resides. A nice way to see what is important to you when you are that age. 7
Sleepyhead - UK
Following some of the most important developmental years of her life, Rae can't get out of bed. Not due to teenage sulkiness but a mystery chronic illness that renders her with no energy. As it worsens and she imagines her useless doctors in a variety of gruesome endings, she finds out who she can really rely on in the world. 8
Shadows - Jor
A scruffy but no less beautiful animation about a young girl negotiating the maze-like structure of an airport as she flees her arranged marriage and uncaring in-laws, wrestling with her conscience at the heartache of leaving her baby behind. 8
An Orange from Jaffa - Fra
Nice little film about a chance meeting of strangers. Mohammed, a young Palestinian man with a Polish passport is making his way through Gaza (the film seems to have been made pre-war but in an unsettled region) towards Israel, where he has to pick his checkpoints wisely. After several failed requests, Farouk. an ageing taxi driver agrees to take him where he needs to go. But attempts to get through border checks, manned by young, bored and heavily armed soldiers blessed with a crumb of power leads to an escalating situation where they could both lose their liveilihoods. 8
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