A Lockdown Labour Weekend Treat – Show Me Shorts Film Festival Moves Online

With those in lockdown in mind, New Zealand’s largest international short film festival releases 2021 programme On Demand

New Zealand’s biggest little film festival, Show Me Shorts, has announced the entire 2021 festival programme of 75 films will be specially released this Friday 22 October at 12 noon, for a ten-day period, on the festival’s dedicated ON DEMAND platform. This has been made possible through the New Zealand Film Commission’s Screen Sector Capability Fund.

The festival opened with cinema events in Christchurch and Wellington two weeks ago, and has since enjoyed spatially-distanced ‘full houses’ at around 30 cinemas throughout Aotearoa, from Tauranga to Dunedin, and as far flung as Ōtaki, Waikaia and rural Selwyn libraries.

Unfortunately, though, the in-cinema sessions in the upper North Island – Whangārei, Hamilton and across the Auckland region – where the audiences have been unable to visit the cinema, have been indefinitely postponed.

With them in mind, especially, the Show Me Shorts team has secured the rights for all the films in the 2021 festival to be screened On Demand, on a special viewing platform created by Hamilton-based Shift 72, whose innovative platform has been adopted by film festivals across the world.

For a limited time – from 12.00pm Friday 22 October to midnight on Sunday 31 October – for the first time ever, audiences can enjoy the entire 2021 Show Me Shorts Film Festival programme online. Tickets for are priced from $10 for separate sessions, up to an “all-in” 75-film bundle for $49. Once audiences have paid for their ticket and received access, they have two weeks to watch the films.

Spanning a variety of genres – from comedy to science fiction, fantasy to thriller – and each between two and 20 minutes, the 2021 selection represents 22 countries: Aotearoa, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Iran, India, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Sudan, USA and the UK.

There are nine On Demand selections – including two for kids and families.

Acting Festival Director Gareth Farry says, “By making all 75 films in the festival now available online, we are able to bring these unique stories from all around the world to film lovers across Aotearoa, especially those who have been unable to visit the cinema in the past weeks. If you are in need of a light hearted tale, to escape with drama or intrigue, or just want to watch another part of the world go by, we look forward to welcoming you.

“We hope our programme will inspire and surprise our audiences. With stories of identity and longing, intrigue and drama, and tales of the chaos of love. You’ll find refreshing takes on familiar themes known to us all, new perspectives in real life stories, and some beautifully-realised animation.”

Also, delivering light relief to New Zealanders stuck at home, the socially-distanced, three-minute children’s comedy Straight Outta Covid, one of the Australian films in this year’s Show Me Shorts programme, will be available free-to-view on Play Stuff: https://play.stuff.co.nz/page/channel-showmeshorts from 12 noon this Friday 22 October.

Show Me Shorts is renowned for delivering some of the very best short films from across the world to New Zealand cinemas and this year is no exception.

From previous Show Me Shorts award winner director Yamin Tun is a stunning new film Blood and Gold, which tells a story of the Otago goldrush from a woman’s perspective. A father and daughter bond over medicinal cannabis in a touching and topical family drama, Green. Well-known actor and director Dwayne Cameron partnered with Sarah James and Weta Digital to create a moving new film with brilliant visual effects, June. Young filmmaker Nahyeon Lee makes her Show Me Shorts debut with Sixteen, and we welcome a return to the screen of Temuera Morrison alongside Tanea Heke in The Woman in Blue.

The festival’s first Sudanese film, Al Sit, has won hearts across the country. Freefall takes us back twenty years to the events of 9/11, in a startling and original way. And audiences will be moved by the compelling spoken word animation from Neil Gaiman, voiced by Amanda Palmer, The Mushroom Hunters.

And it wouldn’t be a COVID-year without pandemic-inspired shorts. Spanish comedy Survivers takes pandemic-anxiety to a new level, and with one person per shot, Hysteria – shot during lockdown – is a some light relief from the worldwide COVID-grief.

Seven Australian short films are being presented in a special stand-alone section which includes Aboriginal meditations and stories of land and place - an intriguing selection from across the ditch that explore themes of migration and belonging, relationships and understanding.

The nine themed sections of the programme are:

1. The Sampler features local and international shorts of wide general appeal.
2. Whānau Friendly has shorts that have been selected with children and families in mind.
3. Love and Chaos has stories about characters who are in search of or expressing their love.
4. Australian Focus features stories exploring the lives and perspectives of diverse Australians.
5. Crossed Wires captures stories of mistake and miscommunication in all its guises.
6. Identity Crisis includes shorts challenging our images of ourselves and others.
7. Online Sampler includes a bumper selection of tense drama and slice of life tales.
8. Online Family Pack brings a colourful selection of treats for whānau viewing.
9. Weird and Wonderful Online is a vibrant collection of real life and animation shorts exploring the wacky imagination at the edges of filmmaking.

You can also choose to access the award nominated films as a separate package. The full programme of films is available at https://ondemand.showmeshorts.co.nz/

A revamped, livestreamed awards event will take place at 7pm Thursday, 28 October.

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