World Renowned FILM CRITIC Bruce Kirkland is a long time fan of the short film medium. And it showed when he finally stepped up to moderate the March 2008 WILDsound short film event.
One of the underlying themes for this month's event was RELATIONSHIPS! Relationships of people (generally from two members of the opposite sex) looking for a connection of some kind. All the films presented were praised by the audience, with the exception of the film The 9th Circle -- which earned the biggest polarizing responses in the history of WILDsound.
The 9th Circle was loved my some and hated by others. Many people loved its craft of terrific filmmaking as many people also thought it was the most offensive film they have ever seen.
This is a film that WILDsound is proud to show and the more reactions you can get from people, the better, in the short film market. It stirred quite an interesting discussion with Bruce Kirkland and the audience as this film opened a large can of worms.
The comments that keep coming back from the audiences throughout the first year this festival about short film-making in general are two main points that most of the films screened didn't do, which was why they were selected:
1) There should never be a lapse moment in a short film. Every second counts. And usually a main problem with many shorts is that they are too long and they need to be edited down. There's a lot of greatness in many shorts but there is too much dullness in between the magic. People seem to be either too close to their material or have a hard time cutting their baby.
2) Many short films have too many themes going on and/or the theme is too large for the short film medium. The cliche line of 'Keep it simple stupid' should be reminded when people try to tell grand epics. The more simple the story, the more grand your message comes across. Entertain the audience first and then your theme will be present.
