The expository title of the Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series almost says it all. Let’s do the numbers: Henry Miller Library executive director Magnus Toren says 1,000 films were submitted; about a dozen people viewed and whittled them down to the top 50; those will be shown in 1-hour batches of 4-5 films every Thursday for 12 weeks, all summer.
Toren says that programming each screening is like a puzzle.
“Within each night, you have to consider the emotional rollercoaster you are presenting,” he says. “This comical love story, should I put before this political commentary on Iraq? Should this documentary from Ireland go first or last? Should I have the audience leave laughing or crying?”
Toren’s been doing this for 10 years now and has surely figured it out. One fun facet, though, is still up in the air.
The last couple of years, the festival has migrated to town, screening concurrently at Osio Cinemas in Monterey. That was a savvy move that captured audiences who didn’t want to make the trip down the coast. Toren is still waiting to hear from a couple of venues if those are a go this year. It’s creating a little suspense.
Toren would prefer the suspense be reserved for the films themselves. He would like to withhold which films you’ll see each night, but eventually he does reveal them, on the Henry Miller website.
“You can Google [the titles] and watch them at home and ruin your night instead of going there and letting it wash over you like it’s supposed to,” he says.
“There” is at the Henry Miller Library, among fellow filmophiles, sitting on your blanket on the lawn with a picnic basket of goodies you’ve brought, under the starry sky, surrounded by the rustle of redwoods, the dark illuminated by art.
The first evening of the series, Toren has lined up Catch It, about a young outdoorsy woman who dons a thick wetsuit and does yoga on a beach in Norway before surfing. From the U.K., Practice Makes Perfect doesn’t need any words to tell its potently sweet story of young romance.
Some suggestions: Admission is by donation, but you have to make reservations by phone or online. Those who arrive three or more to a car can enter a raffle for Big Sur-esque prizes. Don’t watch the films in advance; let them wash over you.
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