{"id":2456486,"date":"2020-03-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=323455"},"modified":"2020-03-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T06:00:00","slug":"ones-to-watch-at-the-virtual-2020-aspen-shortsfest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/ones-to-watch-at-the-virtual-2020-aspen-shortsfest\/","title":{"rendered":"Ones to watch at the virtual 2020 Aspen Shortsfest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
“Marcy Learns Something New”<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Aspen Shortsfest is coming to you this year.<\/p>\n

The Oscar-qualifying short film festival, now in its 29th year produced by Aspen Film, will run online starting Tuesday through April 5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The virtual version of the festival \u2014 which had been scheduled at the Wheeler Opera House before COVID-19 forced closures of public gathering places \u2014 features a lineup of nine programs of short films. Other than the delivery system and venue, it is the same festival that\u2019s been a pillar of Aspen culture for three decades and a springboard for filmmakers like Destin Daniel Cretton, Damien Chazelle and Sarah Polley.<\/p>\n

As Shortsfest audiences have come to expect, it\u2019s a diverse lot. There\u2019s a mix of animation, live action comedies and dramas, international fare and brilliant escapist entries ready-made for respite from our fraught and quarantined moment.<\/p>\n

The programs are not arranged by theme or style, each is a mix of style and form, with emerging and student filmmakers\u2019 work alongside established auteurs and some famous faces.<\/p>\n

There are award winners from the festival circuit and classically weird entries, like the documentary \u201cAll Cats Look Grey in the Dark\u201d about a man\u2019s quest to help one of his cats get pregnant; there are issue-driven documentaries, like the profile of first-generation Americans serving as immigration lawyers \u201cStatus Pending\u201d; and there are stars like Michael McKean and Rachel Dratch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe films and audiences are well-served when you have a diversity of films, rather than too much of one thing,\u201d Shortsfest director of programming Jason Anderson said.<\/p>\n

These are some highlights to look forward to across all nine programs.<\/p>\n

COMEDY<\/p>\n

\u201cMarcy Learns Something New,\u201d Program Three. An oddly sweet sex farce about a widowed school teacher (played by \u201cSNL\u201d alum Dratch) who discovers a new life as a dominatrix.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoffee Shop Names,\u201d Program Four. Dannny Pudi, of \u201cCommunity\u201d fame, leads this eight-minute tale about the simple names three Indian characters with hard-to-pronounce names give baristas when ordering coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaddio,\u201d Program Six. \u201cSNL\u201d alum Casey Wilson directs and stars in an autobiographical black comedy about a dad (McKean) and daughter (Wilson) dealing absurdly with grief.<\/p>\n

\u201cPostcards From the End of the World,\u201d Program Two. A little close to home for this moment in Aspen, perhaps, this 23-minute film follows a family of four on a remote island vacation when human civilization collapses. \u201cIt\u2019s droll, odd and funny,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cAnd not too bleak, hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m No Holiday,\u201d Program One. A mock documentary, starring Steven Zahn as a fireworks photographer. \u201cIt\u2019s great when more prominent actors are in shorts, because they get to do things they don\u2019t often get to do,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThis is really sweet and a great performance by him.\u201d<\/p>\n

ANIMATION<\/p>\n

\u201cBag,\u201d Program Three. A mind-blowing portrait of the long life of a plastic bag by Colorado filmmaker Robin Frohardt, this eight-minute film uses only cardboard, meticulous hand-crafting and in-camera effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaughter,\u201d Program One. A stop-motion, father-daughter story from Oscar-nominated Czech filmmaker Daria Kashcheeva.<\/p>\n

\u201cStreets of Fury,\u201d Program One. A funny, quirky, five-minute piece made in old-school 8-bit video game style by Irish filmmaker Aidan McAteer.<\/p>\n

\u201cPitch Black Panacea,\u201d Program Eight. A seven-minute head trip about a bizarre treatment for lazy eyes.<\/p>\n

Family Program (Program Nine). This collection of seven shorts is aimed at families and children (recommended for age 6 and older). It ranges from the Aspen-produced Holocaust education film \u201cThe Tattooed Torah\u201d to, as Anderson put it, \u201ccute animals doing fun stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOCUMENTARY<\/p>\n

\u201cFlower Punk,\u201d Program One. From acclaimed documentarian Alison Klayman, who made the features \u201cThe Brink\u201d and \u201cAi Weiwei: Never Sorry,\u201d a transcendent 29-minute profile of Japanese flower artist Azuma Makoto.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Youth,\u201d Program Four. A gripping profile of teen Afghan refugees in Athens shot over the course of two years. \u201cThis is a big one for us,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cWe are thrilled to have it in the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKachalka,\u201d Program Three. A fond portrait of a Soviet-era outdoor gym in Kiev, where everything from power-lifting setups to elliptical machines have been constructed out of scrap metal in the forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cDia de la Madre,\u201d Program Two. An eccentric tear-jerker in which music students spend 24 hours secretly going into one another\u2019s houses to perform for their moms on Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Starr Sisters,\u201d Program Two. An intimate story of \u201cfun specialists\u201d Patte and Randa Starr, this 15-minute doc earned praise at Sundance and elsewhere on the festival circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Crying at the Dinner Table,\u201d Program Five. Filmmaker Carol Nguyen interrogates her family history. \u201cEveryone weeps at this, but it\u2019s incredibly good,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

DRAMA<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth of Bix,\u201d Program Six. \u201cSuccession\u201d actress and Colorado native Justine Lupe goes behind the camera and stars in this bittersweet story of a young girl seeing her grandfather for what may be the last time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroken Bird,\u201d Program Five. A biracial girl preparing for her bat mitzvah spends a day trying to connect with her estranged father (played by Chad Coleman, aka Cutty from \u201cThe Wire\u201d) and Indigo Hubbard-Salk (of Netflix\u2019s \u201cShe\u2019s Gotta Have It\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cDarling,\u201d Program Five. A portrait of a burlesque house in Lahore, this won the best short film prize at last year\u2019s Venice Film Festival. \u201cIt\u2019s unlike anything else I\u2019ve ever seen from Pakistan,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Marcy Learns Something New”Courtesy photo Aspen Shortsfest is coming to you this year. The Oscar-qualifying short film festival, now in its 29th year produced by Aspen Film, will run online starting Tuesday through April 5. The virtual version of the festival \u2014 which had been scheduled at the Wheeler Opera House before COVID-19 forced closures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2456486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 07:04:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2456486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}