Short Films Go a Long Way in Promoting Aspen

There are hundreds of competitive festivals for feature films around the world, so when the Aspen Filmfest asked how it could distinguish itself, the short answer was -- shorts.

In 1992 Aspen Filmfest gave birth to Aspen Shortsfest, a world-renowned event that brings visibility to a genre that, too often, goes unnoticed.

“Filmmakers want to be in our festival because the word of mouth from filmmakers is so great. They’re treated like artists,” says Executive Director Laura Thielen.

“A lot of times short makers at other festivals are treated like second-class citizens. They don’t get to talk to the audience, they’re not introduced, their films aren’t shown. We really want to honor them.”

As Shortsfest honors filmmakers with attention, filmmakers honor Shortsfest with entries. In 1995 the festival screened about 30 films. In 2005 it received 2,000 entries from 60 countries, and screened 60 of them, from 28 countries.

Jason Reitman is a Shortsfest fan. While he makes his living directing commercials and has a feature film, Thank You for Smoking, coming out in 2006, shorts are his favorite genre. He has shown three of them at Shortsfest -- In God We Trust, Gulp and Consent -- and won three awards.

“If I had my druthers I’d make a short every year for the rest of my life and keep bringing them to Aspen,” the director says.

“Separating short films into their own festival has given them the time to really nail down what are the best short films of the year.”

Other Shortsfest finds you may have heard of include Gridlock (Belgium), Inja (Australia/South Africa), The Collector of Bedford Street (U.S.), Two Cars, One Night (New Zealand), Squash (France) and Wasp (U.K.).

Shortsfest is an Oscar-qualifying festival, and in the last three years, nine Shortsfest winners have gone on to get Oscar nominations. While no Shortsfest winner has yet won an Oscar, its screening committee played a role shaping a film that did.

Australian claymation artist Adam Elliot showed all three installments of his family trilogy -- Uncle, Cousin and Brother -- at Aspen. He wanted to submit his next effort, Harvie Krumpet, but the committee wrote back saying it still needed work.

Elliot re-shot some scenes and cut a few minutes from the film, which is narrated by actor Geoffrey Rush. But before he could get it to Aspen, it won the 2004 Oscar for best animated short.

“We’re big fans of Adam’s,” says Thielen.
The Shortsfest screening committee may be powerful, but it consists entirely of volunteers and operates almost like a local film-appreciation club. “It’s really easy for people to get in there and be nasty film critics, and that’s not a good place to start a discussion,” Thielen says. So the committee focuses first on what works in each film, and only then weeds out non-contenders by talking about what doesn’t.

“It’s fascinating to watch people who have been in there a couple of years. Films that a couple of years ago they would have been, I hate that, now they’re more appreciative…. It’s really important to engage volunteers on that level. They’re a part of the process and they get to see what goes into the curatorial side.”

While the screening committee makes the first cut, Thielen and two other festival organizers have the last word on which films get screened. Big-name judges like Sideways creators Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor pick the winners.

Aspen Filmfest’s namesake feature-film festival still goes on, in September. But increasingly, its offspring is uniting international artists with local residents and merchants. It’s no coincidence that Shortsfest happens in April, during spring skiing. Shortsfest couldn’t happen without donated housing for visiting filmmakers, so using it as a promotional opportunity for the mountain returns the favor.

“Tracking those demographics is really difficult, but we find there are people who maybe were here for a ski vacation a couple of years ago, and happened to come to it, and thought, ‘Wow, this is a really cool thing,’ and they made a point of making their ski holiday coincide with our dates,” Thielen says.

The Colorado Council on the Arts has been particularly helpful with Shortsfest’s education components, which are provided to students without charge, according to Thielen. In Schools to the Theater, local middle and high school students are treated to an hour or 75-minute selection of shorts specially chosen for them.

“They have a theater experience, they have an unusual movie-going experience, it’s an international experience,” says Thielen. “For many it may be the first time they see a foreign-language film. Whenever possible we have the filmmakers there to do a q-and-a with them.”

Filmmakers in their 20s and 30s arrive in Aspen wanting to do anything but hang with middle-school kids, but often find these encounters the most rewarding part of their stay because “kids will ask anything,” Thielen says.

In the Schools to the Festival program, groups from as far as Denver and Steamboat Springs come to public screenings. A family program presents selections that are appropriate for younger kids.

Thielen wants filmmakers from around the world to view Aspen as a supportive, nurturing place -- even if they never make it there.

“We write a very nice rejection letter that encourages the filmmakers to call us if they want feedback from the screening committee,” she says.

“If a film is not accepted to the competition, it does not mean it’s a bad film. It just means it did not work for our screening committee for some reason.”