Every year, groups of filmmakers gather in cities around the US and draw a genre, prop, line of dialog, and character name out of hats. They then have 48 hours to make a 3 to 7 minute long film using all four. The film has to be complete, too — music, writing, editing, special effects, and so on. The winners from each city bring their films to Cinequest, where they are screened along with prizewinners from the National Film Contest. This reviewer looks forward to the screening every year, even though it usually contains upwards of 30 films and is a tailbone-crushing four hours in length (with one brief intermission). Why? Because sometimes intense pressure produces diamonds.
The shorts screened this year included mockumentaries, comedies, romances, and even a musical (an utterly surreal ode to the wonderfulness of Brisbane, Australia). While the quality of the cinematography varied wildly, it seems that digital filmmaking tools have been a great help. It’s wonderful to see the creative lengths people will go to under time pressure, whether it’s creating a new superhero (Hover Man, whose sidekick is a cup of coffee, slaps sense into people) or imagining the dueling daydreams of two men passing time in an airport. Even if you can’t bring yourself to last the full four hours, this is a project worth checking out.