The amazing thing about short film is that the cathartic effect takes double the toll, because it impacts you in a fraction of the time without any dramatic force abating.

I learned this today at Kyungsung University at the 2007 Busan Universiade for Digital Content (is universiade appropriate for an non-sporting event?). How many times have you watched six films, animation and fiction, in less than two hours? How often have you watched a film in a foreign language, but it didn't matter what was said, because the visual content communicated without words? Short film has a clarity and impact that the standard format just cannot match.

My wife and I watched the "Best International Graduation Films' Selection", a collection of three animation and three fiction films. I'm still pondering two, Exit and Antebody, neither of whose synopses do justice to either film. In the first, the animated anti-hero walks off the set after killing its creator, and in the second, a man struggles with what he knows will most likely happen no matter how much he tries to change his life. In another film, Croak, the whole audience felt good for the murderer after he took a bullet for another victim of a senseless armed robbery.

I don't really need to know if these directors move into longer genres. I don't want to see the same films extending into a 120-minute format. Like short stories, these films are potent pills.

Also check out Misha Antonich in this rare interview with PWeb's Sarah!