There was a time when short films were a part of practically everyone’s theatrical experience. In the days of double features, short films would be included in the program, sandwiched in somewhere between the serial and the newsreel. Sadly, those days are over. The small number of short films that do get projected tend to do so in a festival context, or as part of the occasional short-film program at your local arthouse.
The rest of them show online, on YouTube or MySpace, or any number of sites that specialize in short films. In the past decade, more websites have brought attention to young filmmakers by mounting online short film festivals, and the currently-in-progress Now Film Festival is no exception. Since October, the festivals review committee has been selecting one submitted movie per week to post on their site. Then the viewers give feedback on the films, and the best-received entries will progress to the final round of voting to be eligible win a new camera package.
There have been a number of worthy films to date, but the best of the lot thusfar is this week’s featured short, Lucas McNelly’s gravida. A far cry from the genre spoofery and juvenile humor many people have grown to expect from online shorts, gravida is a mature character study about a young pregnant woman trying to keep her loneliness at bay. From my original review of the film:
"gravida has much the same power as a good short story. It never overreaches for effect or tries to shoehorn too much into its relatively brief running time. It merely follows a situation to its logical end. We know just enough about its two characters to sympathize with where they’re coming from, and why they do what they do. . . Lucas McNelly has made a serenely confident short film, with which he shows a real facility as a director. He never tries to dazzle the audience with flashy technique or camera work, preferring his style to be dictated by his material. . . McNelly’s direction is subtle enough not to overwhelm the film, but strong enough to assure us that there’s a firm hand on the wheel. I’m eager to see what he does next."
Check out gravida and all of the selected shorts at the Now Film Festival web site, and don’t forget to vote for your favorites on MySpace's film page. The official gravida web site, which features links to other reviews of the film, can be found here.
