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This past weekend Fargo-Moorhead movie buffs were treated to several showings of the Manhatten Short Film Festival.  Fargo was the only city in North Dakota to screen this “festival.”  There were 173 screenings world wide on five continents.  There were screenings in all 50 United States, with additional screenings in Mexico and Canada to make up the North America screenings.  The other continents were Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.

The Manhattan Short began 12 years ago with outdoor screenings on a side of a truck.  This year, there were 432 submissions.  Ten of these were selected to be sent to the venues mentioned above.  The audience were given cards with each of the 10 films lilsted, and each viewer was asked to vote for his/her favorite film.  The worldwide votes will be tallied and the winner declared.  The screenings all took place during the week  of Sept 22 thru 29.

As would be expected, the films were all of high quality and were perfectly fitted for the new Fargo Theatre Off Broadway.  There were thought provoking political/ethical films, comedies, animation and more.  There wasn’t much in the way of action or romance.  Normally, I wouldn’t attempt to review every film in a festival(of course,m this wasn’t really a festival: there were several screenings of all ten films) but In this case, I think each worthy of some comment, so I’ll give it a try.

The first offering was The Boundary, directed by Julius Onah.  Film is about an American citizen who had emigrated from the Middle East at some point in his life.  He and his family are returning from a trip to their native land to visit relatives, and presumably the boundary of the title is the border between Canada(apparently) and the US.  Having crossed the border, the father(Alexander Siddig, Syrianna) is detained because he has the same name as a suspected terrorist.  The movie is about his detainment and near incarceration in some suspected terrorist facility before, at the last moment, the FBI notifies the Homeland Security agents that the fingerprints don’t match, and to release Siddig immediately.  This is done, but what had been a joyful homecoming had soured in the process.

Se are supposedly a free people and the cornerstone of our democracy is the respect of human rights, both of ourselves and of others.  Our actions as a society, in my observation over more decades than I care to admit, has been anything but.  At the risk of degrading my review with personal ethical opinion, I have always thought that by denying human rights to others in order to protect what we believe to be our own is misguided and contadictory.  This film makes this point poignantly, and it got my vote.

The second offering was Love Child from Swedish director Daniel Wirtberg.  It was about a family that with a five year old gril that adopts a cat.  The girl, whose real name is Kidra and does a remarkably believable  job in the role, finds herself  left out of her parent’s attention universe which is concentrated on the cat.  Finally, she goes out unnoticed by her infatuated parents and comes back dressed in a cat suit.  There’s probably moe to this movie, but I thought it a cute idea, while empathisizing with the girl.

The third short, Mozambique, was filmed by seventeen year old Alcises Soares of Mozambique.  I’m nt sure what language the film’s dialogue, but there was no doubt some Portuguese(as is, I believe, the director’s name), as Mozambique, on the east coast ofr Africa, was a Portuguese Colony until the early seventies.

The moviie is about the devastation caused by the AIDS epedimic in East Africa, and in particular its affect on the family structure.  In the movie, a boy about Soares’ age tries to unite with what is left of his family.

Next was an animated short, Skhizein, from Director Jeremy Clapin of France.  I think this movie a clever idea with interesting CGI.  The idea is that the main character, Henri, is struck by a 150 ton meteorite and is somehow knocked 91 centimeter out of reality.  So in order to effect anything in the physical world, he had to act 91 centimeters away from whatever he was trying to do.  For example, if he wants to answer a phone, he must pick up the receiver by grasping the handpiece by closing his hand on thin air exactly 91 centimeters from the actual phone.  The movie could be considered as a comment on mental illness versus different perceptions.  Skhizein means “split” of “cleave” in Greek.  A cute idea, amusing in the sense of “The Red Balloon.:

From Spain, the next offering was Parking, by Jorge Molina.  The story is about an executive who, when leaving work one day, goes to the parking garage to get his car, only to find someone already iin it.  The movie is about, I think, about the unstringing of the highly strung executive as he talks to his friend on a cell phone while trying to get his car back.  There’s supposedly some message here about failure, but I didn’t really follow that.  This is probably as good a point as any to remark that I found the excerpts before/after the film of the director explaining what the film meant annoying.  This is not to say Parking is not a good movie on whatever level one wishes to view it.

There was an intermission followed by an Italian film, A’Mare, directed by Martina Amati.  Amare means “To Love” in Italian, but with the apostrophe(A’Mare), it means the man in the sea.

The film is about two boys, about 10, I would guess, that live in a costal fishing village in Italy that go fishing, as they always do, get too far from land, and discover a man floating in the sea.  He turns out to be alive, but just barely,  The boys are unable to get any passing boa\oats to stop and help them.  Thjey finally are able to return to their village and the man recovers, swimming away as a fish or porpoise.  The title is an intentional double entendre, being about the filial love between the two boys which was explored by their discovery of the man(apparently Moroccan) in the sea.

Next was Plastic, from Australian director Sandy Widynata.

Preparing for a date, Anna, who is initially displeased with her physical appearance, discovers that she can alter it by pulling on her skin.  After trying several different make-over’s, she decides her original appearance wasn’t so bad after all.  Not a new idea, but fun anyway.

Perhaps the most intereesting film in my opinion was Miente, directed by Isabel De Ocampo from Spain.

The movie was about the exploited immigrant girls in Spain and what their lives as prostitutes, particularly in the case being examined,. the result on the whole family.  Dreams are mixed with reality in ths film, so there is some symbolism and some outright drama.  I iwsh the film were longer and supplied more detail so I would have had more to think about.

Lashabiya is a very thought provoking movie, at least to me, from Israeli director Yehezkel Lazarov.  It takes place in an elementary schoolyard(supposedly Laxarov’s own, and consists of a game between an outnumbered Israeli and initially ten Palestinians.  They play a game, reminiscent of hide and seek, with certain rules.  The armed Palestinians try to get to the Israeli while he is hiding his eyes.  If he catches one of the moving, the Palestinian is dismissed, as are others for violating other rules.  Eventually, there’s one Palestinian and the Israeli left.  The just stand and stare at each others as the sound of playing children flood the theater.  Lots of food for thought here, I think:  The children are the important thing of course, but the two enemies are just staring at each other, not doing anything.  I wish the director hadn’t told me so much.

The final film was Hammerhead, from the UK, directed by Sam Donovan.

The relevant story is about the effects of  divorce on the child, Boris in this case.  Boris’ mother works in an aquarium, and gives him a hammerhead mask to take with him one day when he is picked up by his father.  Now hammerheads have eyes protruding out in either direction from their bodies, so they can’t really see what’s ahead of them, only to distinctly different sides.  So Boris can see only see two disconnected images when he wears the mask, often of his father on one side and his mother on the other.

As many children of divorced parents would do, Boris trys to untie his parents on a shark spotting trip, but the futility of his efforts is underscored by the presence on the trip of his mother’s female lover.  Boris disappears for a while, uniting his parents in their concrn for him, but that’s bout all. something here bout the irresistable force against the immovable object, but more about the tragedy of divorce’s effect on children.

I found all the offerings of high quality, each with some interesting story, point or twist.  I must admit my expectations were probably too high: I sort of expected an oscar winner with every film, and that did not happen.

I think we are extremely fortunate to have events of this caliber in our area.  Kudos to Margie Bailey and the Fargo Theatre for elevating the level of culture in our area.