2011 Cannes’ Short Film Competition Introduces World to Next Wave of Auteurs

There are talent labs, and there are cinema funds from festivals (ie. Rotterdam’s CineMart; Cannes’ Atelier), and then there are the short film sections; every important festival has one, and those who do well get their films promoted and financed to become feature-length debuts. Cannes’ Short Film Competition (Court Métrage) awards a full-blown Palme d’Or to its winner, and more often than not, these winning filmmakers become the next big names in cinema.

Jane Campion won it with Peel in 1982; as did Marian Crisan with 2008’s Megatron (he went on to direct last year’s Locarno awardee Morgen), and Cătălin Mitulescu with Traffic in 2004. Lynne Ramsay was a runner-up with a Grand Prix award for her Small Deaths, and while Nuri Bilge Ceylan didn’t win with his short Cocoon, it was definitely there in the ’95 Competition. The latter 3 names are especially notable right now, as all three have films in the festival’s competition this year (while also being household names among the cinephile brigade). Pays off, doesn’t it?

This year, we’ve got nine names that we can count on to make some noise in the next several years of cinema. The winner will be selected by an impressive jury headed by surreal filmmaker Michel Gondry, including Corneliiu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective), João Pedro Rodrigues (To Die Like a Man), Jessica Hausner (Lourdes), and actress Julie Gayet (Agnès Varda’s Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma).

Ma Dahci from North Korea brings Ghost, about a man who is being chased by police, and hides out in an empty house. The Korean filmmaker was in Berlin’s 2009 Talent Campus on the strength of his previous shorts Nevertheless and Mysteries of Nature. Ghost was entered through the Short Film Corner, which is Cannes’ market for hundreds of buyer-seeking short films since 2004.

Wannes Destoop comes with Swimsuit 46 from Belgium. This is the filmmaker’s graduation project from KASK, Fine Arts Academy in Ghent, and is his second straight film dealing with the trials and tribulations of an overweight protagonist, after his 2008 short We Are So Happy. This is a Flanders Image picture, who are also behind Directors’ Fortnight selection Blue Bird by Gust Van den Bergh.

Vladimir Durán’s Soy tan felix (I Am So Happy) is coming in from Argentina, and was also part of BAFICI’s Talent Campus from earlier this April. The film sounds a bit abstract, focusing on two brothers who are left home for the weekend in Winter. There are burning cars, bugs smashed against a windshield, and missing, expected mother. “The car continues on”, says the synopsis. Alrighty.

Nash Edgerton (see pic above) is following up his sensationally visceral short film “Spider” with Bear, both co-written by fellow Blue Tongues Films groupie David Michôd (Animal Kingdom). I saw Spider at a short film event in Toronto a month ago, and I was invigorated by the way it held the viewer in flux; every two minutes the film changed, albeit organically, into a completely different genre, all centred around a practical joke that’s gone horribly, horribly wrong (you can watch it here). Bear is about a guy who has a new girlfriend, but “hasn’t quite learner his lesson” (based on his previous film, and the title Bear, she’d better watch out).

Lisa Marie Gamlem studied film at the Norwegian Film School at Lillehammer, and will bringing her film Kjøttsår (Fleshwound) to the Short Film Competition. Gamlem previously competed in Berlin’s short film competition in 2007 with Benny’s Tattoo, and has also directed TV mini-series (such as Emmy-nominated Ping-Pong) in the interim. The film received funding from the Norsk Filminstitutt, and is about a 13-year old boy who gets drunk and must deal with the consequences from his father.

Sam Holst from New Zealand is competing with his film Meathead – also a Berlin Talent Campus alumni – which is filmed with non-actors, shot on locations at an in-operation meat factory in Waikato, New Zealand. Holst has been working in both commercials and short filmmaking for the last few years, with his previous film being 2005’s Swing.

Telefilm Canada is pleased to announce that the Quebec film Ce nest rien (It’s Nothing) by Nicolas Roy is North America’s lone representation in the Short Film competition. The last Quebecois film to win the Short Film Palme d’Or was Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’ When the Day Breaks (1999).

Even less is known about Megumi Tazaki’s Paternal Womb, coming in as Japan’s lone representation in the selection. What we do know is that the film is 15-minutes long, and… that’s about it.

Rounding out the nine-film selection is Maryna Vroda’s film Cross, which is a French production despite Vroda’s Russian nationality. Vroda graduated from Kiev National University of Theatre, Film and Television, and was in the 2010 Berlinale Talent Campus. Cross was produced by Sota Cinema Group, who also helped produce last year’s Cannes entries Chantrapas (Otar Iosseliani) and the competing My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa).