New Experience: Watching Short Films at a Movie Theater

Short films can be defined differently depending on who you ask: but in general any movie that is less than half an hour is classified as a short film, or "short" for short. In the old days short films sometimes would be shown before the main feature at a movie theater and on rare occasions you could see them by themselves, typically at a non-commercial theater. Interestingly enough, these days they are easier to see because of the Internet: you can see a number of them on streaming, YouTube or Vimeo. At the same time, it's not so easy to see them anymore at a movie theater.

Today I had the opportunity to do just that and watch a short film at an actual movie theater (and a pretty good one at that). The SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) was showing all five of the short films that have been nominated for this year's Oscar at their theater in Queen Anne, the SIFF Cinema Uptown. All five movies were shown back to back, so with one ticket you could see them all:
All five were extraordinary movies. The fact that they are short means that they pack quite an emotional punch on each one of them, and for more than one there were people sobbing at the theater. I cannot tell much about each one because, being short stories, that would reveal too much. I can say for sure that, if you have the opportunity to see any of them, don't miss it. It is quite interesting to see how the filmmakers, working with much less time than in a normal movie, manage to tell a full story and really take you for a ride. The fact that I could see them on a big screen (and the SIFF Cinema Uptown is a great venue) made for an even more engaging experience.

To many people (myself included before this experience) a short film brings the impression of something cobbled together that only makes sense to people studying cinema. Today I discovered that that can be very far from the truth, and I'm very glad I gave this a try - and I think you may agree with me, if you give those short movies a chance.









Location: Seattle, WA, USA

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