I nipped along to the Etrange (‘Strange’) Festival this month to catch a shorts programme at the 15^th edition of this panorama of cinema both weird and wonderful. This year’s volume, which took place at Paris’ Forum des Images, boasted both an impressive range of sponsors, and a number of cinematic coups: the highly-anticipated Belgian animation Panique au Village opened the festival, (with carte blanche subsequently given to its two directors for another shorts programme) while Adam Elliott’s Mary and Max closed proceedings (Elliott directed the Oscar winning short Harvie Krumpet – watch it here ). Duncan Jones’ Moon and Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 were also featured.

As expected, the shorts programme boasted fewer well-known names, although many of the directors have excellent reputations in their field. Albert Sackl is one such name – a significant European experimental filmmaker, who certainly provoked a variety of thoughts in me with his film Steifheit 1 and 2. This lo-fi piece in fact presents a young man entirely naked, masturbating to the camera for 3 minutes, followed by another who does exactly the same thing. Intriguing, this experimental stuff…

On the slightly more mainstream side, we had two outstanding CGI pieces – Alma by Rodrigo Blaas and Pork-Cutlet by Do-Young Kim. Both sinister in their own ways (spoilers ahead!) as in the former an inquisitive little girl gets transformed into an immobile doll (as happened to a number of children before her), while in the second, an endearing piglet meets his fate in an abattoir after valiantly attempting escape. Frankly, I would struggle to distinguish a difference in quality between these and some of the more well-known animated features we’ve seen of late.

La Citadelle and Murder were the weakest links from my point of view. Not a fan of the gothic puppetry style of animation, particularly in dark greys, mouldy greens, browns and black, I found these stretches of 17m and 7m respectively, difficult to appreciate. If my eyes threatened to close as the second hour began, they were jolted open again by the neon explosions of David O’Reilly’s RGB XYZ and Damir Cucic’s Memorija Vrpce. At just 23, O’Reilly is starting to make considerable waves in the international animation community. Described as ‘somewhere between Kubrick and Kaufman and Ketamine by Cyberpunk webzine Boing Boing, he was selected for the coveted Berlinale Talent Campus this year, and proceeded to win the Golden Bear for his short PSS (Please Say Something) , which is nudging 300,000 views on YouTube.

Still from RGB XYZ (Click through to view)

Memorija Vrpce meanwhile is a surprisingly mesmerising 4 minute assault on the retinas using flashing neon dots (this article’s thumbnail is extracted from the film). Die Schneider Krankheit by Spanish director Javier Chillon takes care to remind us in the beginning that no stock footage has been used. The narrative depicts the crashing of a Soviet spaceship in Western Germany which results in its chimpanzee passenger spreading a deadly virus. Indeed the footage looks like it could have been shot in the 1950s – the decade in which it is set. If this hasn’t starting ringing bells already; it is clearly referencing Chris Marker’s legendary short film-photo montage, La Jetée, to the extent that it includes the famous shot of the prostrate eye-mask wearing protangonist (see picture). Marker’s fim has inspired many homages, although I would say that Chillon’s fim can’t take the place of John Harden’s La vie d’un Chien in my heart.

Die Scheider Krankheit

Finally, if my brain wasn’t yet traumatized enough, Naglinn (The Nail) had my holding my head in my hands as I watched its main character ram a nail deep into his forehead not once, but twice. It turns out that he is in fact the Prime Minister, who proceeds to go to work where he attempts to rape a female member of his cabinet. A very strange route into the psyche of Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson! All in all, when a festival deliberately describes itself as strange, it to some extent insures itself against criticism. This was definitely an eclectic mix, and one that definitely kept me wondering what they would come up with next, and it’s for that reason that I’m very likely to pop back next year. http://www.etrangefestival.com/