THERE'S AN ELEMENT of risk involved in attending short film and video festivals that audiences can usually avoid with the more established shows. Unknown directors, hazy plots and unconvincing, squirm-inducing debuts are just some of the pitfalls.
On the other hand, there is always the chance of discovering the next big thing or seeing the early work of directors you have grown to love at a point in their careers before the pressure of success kicked in.
Many directors enjoy the freedom that short films give them to explore themes or experimental techniques they may not have the courage to use in a feature-length format. For first-timers, short films and videos offer the chance to try movie-making, especially now that technology has made the process relatively affordable. And, for an audience used to watching films that have been thoroughly test screened, it's a chance to see something novel and non-mainstream.
Looking through the shorts on offer at the ninth International Film and Video Awards (IFVA) Short Film and Video Festival it's clear that this year there's been a new approach by its organisers, the Hong Kong Arts Centre. Gone is the free-for-all programming that saw more than 200 films on the billing. Instead, there are 89 films judged to standard by jurors from the Hong Kong Film Critics' Association and the Hong Kong Film Critics' Society, including award winners in the Open, Animation, Youth and Asian New Force categories.
'Last year we showed every film that was submitted,' says Connie Lam, the Hong Kong Arts Centre's programme director, 'but the audience feedback was that programmes were too big and they wanted us to concentrate on fewer films.'
This year, the 35 Hong Kong shorts and 17 Asian productions are joined by international films from Eastern Europe and America. A series of after-screening talks by filmmakers aims to offer insights into the techniques used and challenges encountered during production.
Lam also says the event is a good barometer of the hot issues of the day. In the case of Hong Kong, she points to Cheung Yuk-chiu's Clearance Of Chater Garden, Lost The Base, which examines last year's July 1 anti-Article 23 protests. Another is Cheung Ka-to and Law Wai-lok's Nightmare, in the youth category, which she says illustrates young people's fascination with the horror genre encouraged by a traditional love of ghost stories and an enthusiasm for recent hits such as The Ring.
