yesterday i went to the golden horse film festival to see the digital shorts competition b. it seems that the way they are doing the shorts this year has changed. in the past the audience would vote on which films they liked best of the digital shorts in competition, but this year there was no voting(unless they just didn't do that for this screening for some reason). in past years, they'd call the director's up after each film to say a few words about the films. but this year they waited until the entire screening was finished then had all the directors come up and say some words about their films and ended with a q&a session. sadly, the translator didn't translate anything in french to english only to chinese. the one french speaking director talked for a long time about his film. sadly, my chinese wasn't up to catching all of what was said.

the two stand out films for me were cedric babouche's imago and peter tscherkassky's instructions for a sound and light machine.

imago was one of the most gorgeous animated films i've ever seen. the backgrounds were beautiful watercolours. the film had no dialogue and more importantly didn't need any. i'd love to see a full length film by this director or just more shorts for that matter, especially if it's anything like imago.

instructions for a sound and light machine was wonderfully experimental. it used some old western as it's basis and then set out to manipulate and distort those images. there are lots of experimental films that use found footage, but for the most part they are just re-edited together. this film actively took apart the film. it was really inspiring and made me want to leave the theater and go make a film right then and there. always a sign of a good film. there is one thing that puzzles me though. this was part of the digital competition, yet it states that this film is 35mm. so where does the digital portion come in? maybe it was edited and manipulated digitally and then printed on 35mm? regardless, i'm just happy i was able to see it.