Three months, over 200 entries, one winner — the inaugural edition of Chennai’s Short+Sweet Film Festival, it’s safe to say, has started with a bang. Organised by Stray Factory, it is a result of a series of discussions between its founder Mathivanan Rajendran and the founder of Short+Sweet, Mark Cleary, both of who agreed that Chennai deserves a place in this year’s edition of the festival (it started last year) “Out of the 200 entries, a select jury will chose 40, from which a winner will be selected after audience polling,” says Mathivanan, adding, “The winner will then be screened along with the winning entries from three other participating cities like Sydney, Dubai and Manila at the final Short+Sweet Hollywood Film Festival Interna-tional Grand Finals in Los Angeles later this year.”
Gangster stories, horror/supernatural and comedy are the dominant themes among the entries, Mathivanan says. That said, there were a few who stood out for their uniqueness. “There were few films that focused on themes such as animal slaughter and natural calamities. However, romance has a taken a backseat with less entries from that genre coming in,” he informs, adding that they have also got animation and contemporary dance movies, besides some with interesting narration styles such as single-take or POV. He further adds, “The age group of the directors so far is 20-25. However there is a film by 16-year-old that was shot in a refugee camp. We couldn’t leave that out!”
At Wandering Artist. June 23-25. Entry at Rs. 150.