The sampling of recent shorts featured everything from brief animated sequences like Johannes Nyholm’s Dreams from the Woods, to Stig Björkman’s documentary and almost-to-long-to-be-a-short Images From the Playground.
The latter shows snippets of film shot by Ingmar Bergman (with his home camera). The outtakes and behind the scenes footage from sets and vacations is set to interviews with Bergman and his leading ladies. The film is centered around each of them: Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Bergman says of his trinity of actresses, “We’ve had intense personal relationships, roles and films have been shaped by that.” Such revelations are more or less what one would expect. Others may surprise the audience, such as the tidbit that Bergman, master of severity, liked to ham it up to amuse his cast, among other things by imitating Groucho Marx.
Jonas Odell’s Lies (awarded at Sundance) a semi-animated short in three chapters in which three liars tell stories of big and small lies they’ve told in their lives is fascinating both to look at and listen to.
Good Advice by Andreas Tibblin is another poignant story: A chubby boy, Rasmus feels he falls short of his gym teacher father’s expectations. In the privacy of his room, where astronomy posters decorate the walls, he records a tape for his unborn brother, giving him advice for how to best live with his parents. Advice Rasmus wants to impart as he will not be there to give it in person; he is about to run away. The frantic search that follows and Rasmus’s advice in things big and small, is humorous as well as heart-wrenching.
