POLYSEMY Online ©2006

This weekend, I was asked to serve on the awards jury for the short film competition of the Chicago International Film Festival. So, I spent my weekend in a dark screening room, watching about forty short films, from 3 minutes long to 20 minutes. The program selections had already been lined up, but we were to choose which films were deserving of awards.

Nope; don't look here for any dirt on what was said. But, it was an interesting experience to be on the other side of things for a change. I found that the general pool of works really set the tone for the discussion. Of course, each individual juror had his or her particular taste in things, but I think we were all able to look past that and see a film for what it was attempting to do, and meet it at that place.

What all of the jurors agreed on was looking back at all the films we'd seen and choosing the ones that had managed to touch us in a visceral, honest way. I'd argue that all of the films had their flaws; some more than others (but one can argue that for ANY film). The films that we chose were the ones that we kept thinking about, even at the end of the weekend. Or the ones where we thought that the director had really taken a chance with his or her storytelling techniques. (Oh, and of course there was an argument about what gets called experimental and what gets called narrative, but for the purposes of this particular entry, I'm using 'story' in a very broad manner).

The jurying was an ongoing process; watching a batch of films, and checking in with each other about where we thought things fell. At the end, we discussed all the films once more, and then talked about the ones that stayed on the list throughout. One thing that we made sure to do was to watch each film all the way through. Since we weren't watching all 1,800 submitted shorts, but only the 40 that were going to be programmed, we felt an obligation to see each one through. But, with this sort of rigorous screening and evaluation, I can see how the first 2 minutes of any film are so critical at the first pass of a selection committee.

I can also see how much it matters to make something that you really feel strongly about, or that touches you in a personal way. Or something that you think is just deliriously fun or interesting.