Aspen Shortsfest

Aspen Shortsfest started yesterday.

I don't like short stories. Not sure why but I don't.

So Steve thought I might not like short films. But they're different.

Not sure why but they are.

Anyhow, for the first time in the almost nine years that I've lived here, I went to a Shortsfest event last night.

Tried to go to two but got shut down on the second one. They sell passes to the whole 5 day long festival and then they sell advance sales individual tickets. Then, because they never know how many passholders are going to show up, they have a waitlist line that they let in once they determine how many empty seats there are.

For the second event, for which we couldn't get advance sales tickets, we were the first people in the waitlist line who didn't get in. As Steve said, we were the biggest losers. At least we weren't the only losers. You know, misery loves company.

But enough about the event we didn't see. What about the event we did?

It was Competition Program One and it was made up of 8 different shorts, 3 animated and 5 live action.

I really didn't like two of the animated shorts, Bill Plympton's Boomtown and The Wise Man. They were just too esoteric and too self-satisfied with their artistic skill. The other animated short, John and Karen, was cute and funny and honest. It was the awkward apology scene between a couple after one offends the other. Oh, and the couple are a polar bear and a penguin.

Since Steve and I were late, we missed most of the first live action short, It's My Turn (Ismet Ergun). I liked all four of the others, although one, Alagados, was a rather formulaic look at a youth trying to rise out of the ghetto in Brazil. Left in Baghdad was a touching portrait of a wounded Iraq war veteran and Just One Hour was a funny, twisted proposition between complete strangers.

But my favorite was Sikumi (On the Ice), a dark, character piece about a crime in the remote Arctic.

Steve's at the second event tonight but I couldn't go since I had parental schlepping duties to fulfill. I think he bought tickets for both of us for something tomorrow.