As one film festival’s door closes, another opens.
The festival that’s closing is the 19th Annual Animation Show of Shows, a collection of some of the best animated short films that founder Ron Diamond can find each year, ending its one-week run at Osio Theater this Thursday, June 7.
“This year the films are more humanistic,” Diamond says. “There are older films that bring in… voices from the past.”
One such film is Everything, featuring British-American philosopher Alan Watts expounding on each person’s value to the universe. Then there is 1964’s grim The Hangman, a cautionary poem by Maurice Ogden about authoritarianism.
These are remarkable works that Diamond says families have enjoyed, but I wouldn’t take my 4-year-old. With topics like a couple’s marriage crisis due to space-time continuum obsession, and existential workplace musings about life (a Swedish stunner called The Burdens), it’s too intellectually mature and emotionally sophisticated. And that’s great news for adults, teens and tweens who are ready to be challenged and dazzled.
The festival that is just opening its run is the Henry Miller Library’s Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series. It was postponed last year due to the closure of Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge; it’s back this year with 50 films culled from 1,400 submissions. It’s playing at the HML on Thursdays starting June 7, with encores at The Lab in Carmel’s Barnyard on Sundays.
Henry Miller Library Executive Director Magnus Toren wants to promote the series, which plays out in five-six bunches of films at a time through the whole summer, but he wants to not reveal too much about the films.
“The reason is that it is better to see films uncluttered by prejudice,” he writes by email. “I have had the experience many times and I treasure those times.”
But the series is a known quantity around these parts. For one year, they held the finale at the Golden State Theatre to a sold-out audience. And because the festival is in its 12th year and the submissions come from far-flung locales around the world (although films from Europe get more play than, say, Asia or Africa), the diversity of stories and level of quality is high.
So it’s not hyperbole when Toren says “We have a great lineup of drama, comedy and documentary this year!” How’s that for discreet?
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