SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: The Cape Town leg of the Shnit
International Short Film Festival takes place from 7 to 11 October in venues in
and around the city; bringing together a selection of top local and international
work. Sean Drummond, Cape Town festival manager and global Shnit coordinator
discusses the state of local short filmmaking with Screen Africa.
In what ways do you feel a short film can be more satisfying than a
feature film to viewers?
I’m not sure I’d say outright that a short or a feature is more satisfying… I think
each can be satisfying in its own way. With shorts, I think part of the appeal is
access and variety – how many different types of short storytelling are available, in
so many different genres, styles, etc. I think audiences are incredibly sharp these
days – media literate, story literate, and a lot more discerning. If we don’t like
something, we switch off, or switch over. Our attention spans are quite a lot
shorter too I think. With a short you’re in it, you’re entertained, and you’re out.
Short sharp concentrated ideas, emotions, moments, insights.
Shorts are a chance to be both less rigid and more focussed than with longer form
storytelling, where arcs and structures are so important. With shorts you get to
bend the rules, and as an audience you’re in on that. You can hone in on one tiny
aspect, and make your whole film about that, and have it resonate – though you do
get longer shorts that play on mainstream story structures, too. My favourite-ever
Shnit films list includes a brilliant 45 second, one-scene comedy short that won the
audience award in 2010 and still gets a laugh-out-loud response every time it
screens; and a half-hour well-structured, more ‘traditional storytelling’ short from
last year that brings me to tears every time I see it.
How have you seen short films develop and change since the start of your
festival?
Most of the change in how I see shorts is within myself. Having written and made
shorts, and partly launched my own film career and company off the back of a
successful short, I really got into the world of shorts from a festival point of view
by accident. It’s really only since bringing Shnit to South Africa and then going on to get heavily involved with Shnit globally that I’ve learnt how expansive world shorts really are. It’s one of the things we’re really pushing this year at the festival in Cape Town – shorts are an essential foundation stone of any country’s industry, and we’re in the early stages of a new wave of filmmaking in South Africa that I believe is going to be driven largely by shorts. We need to secure that foundation and now start focussing on taking our short films to the world, as proof of concepts for longer projects, or as stand-alone works in themselves. There’s a huge
marketplace for them, and an appetite for our stories, and we need to serve that.
How do you select shorts for your line up? What are you looking for?
We’ve got different levels of selection at Shnit – A global selection panel makes the
selections for the international competition, looking at 1000’s of entries from all
over the world, across all genres, including documentary, animation and
experimental. The localised films are sent to Playgrounds (host cities) for their
national competition selections; we have an invitation South Africa selection panel
made up of filmmakers, producers and festival programmers in Cape Town, London,
Los Angeles and Johannesburg. The basic criteria for Shnit films are the same on
both international and local levels: first, technical excellence, imagination,
originality, and a powerful viewpoint – a directorial vision, a voice; a curious eye on
the world, perhaps. Bold filmmaking, whether surreal animation or deep drama.
Shnit films are often quirky and fun, but hopefully never shallow or gimmicky – we
tend towards films that tap into something raw and human, deeper films, trying to
make sense of the world maybe, trying to unpack the world we live in – or aiming
for a greater understanding of what/who we are as human beings. It helps on an
international level that the festival is so international – you really get a sense of a
world’s worth of storytelling mindsets in each year.
This year I think we’ve managed to select a really powerfully resonant South
African competition line up, as well as a really strong out-of-competition local line
up too. It was a bumper year for entries. We’re showing around 35 local films this
year, and it was the hardest battle for screen time I think we’ve had in the history
of the fest in Cape Town.
Do you feel there is a kind of short film revival taking place in the
industry? If so, what do you think is the reason for this?
I think shorts have always had a solid place in the industry – looking at festivals like
Clermont-Ferrand that’s been running for 38 years. Many top filmmakers working
today made their name through short films before great success. Film schools have
focussed on shorts for a long time, and grad works are often the films that
announce new exciting voices onto the scene, and they take off from there. But no
doubt the audience for shorts is growing hugely, probably mostly because of the
internet, in that shorts are accessible now in a way they’ve never been, but also in
a revival of festivals and screening events focussed on shorts all over the world.
And so filmmakers are turning (back) to shorts as a way of getting noticed, of
cutting their creative teeth, of experimenting and trying out new techniques and
ideas. And then of course the means of production are so accessible these days.
Anyone can be making great work and putting it straight online. It’s all a lot more
democratic, like with music – the audience is yours for the taking, if you can grab
their attention.
How has the quality of locally produced short films changed or advanced
in the last few years? Why do you think this is?
We’ve seen it get better and better and better every year. From early years where
we had to go out and search for local content, it’s incomparable. This year
especially we had an amazing set of submissions. I think the short answer is:
Filmmakers are hungry. For success, for getting their work out, for recognition, for
tapping into global platforms and networks… and so they’re hustling, pushing
harder than ever to make great work. And the whole industry is behind it, from
the foundations, organisations and festivals offering funding and showing the films,
to the gear houses, post houses, sound studios, suppliers – and individuals, crew,
actors, everyone – offering deals and support. The industry is hungry.
How well attended is the Shnit Film Fest? And have you seen an increase
in attendance in the last few years?
It’s grown every year – and excitingly, it’s the local films that are really drawing
bigger and bigger crowds each year. We had to turn away people from local
screenings last year, which is not ideal, so there are new venues and new
screenings in place this year to accommodate. Our audience is around 2000 – 2500
over the festival weekend in the city, and we’ll be at Rocking the Daisies again this
year after a break of a couple of years, so that’s 16 000 potential audience in a 24
hour a day cinema screening tent! We’re also planning smaller satellite screenings
in other major SA cities, so we hope to be in Joburg and Durban this year with a
limited international line up and the full South African line up.
For more information, visit the Shnit website.
