Mike Plante

As soon as you get over the “back to school” frenzy, it’s October and the costume and candy craze commences. It’s been a couple of decades since I’ve been in school, but you run into all of this by merely going to the store. In our latest edition of Short Order, we offer a pair of short films from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival that manage to capture all the pertinence of the seasons.

We’ve screened films by Kelly Sears in five Festivals, including her latest, Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise. Making use of real photos that she has either found or shot herself, Sears’ films are all made by hand. Beyond the imagery, she has a unique style with her timing and sound design. The way she tells a story gets into your head and you forget about the technique. After multiple shorts, Sears has achieved one of the best results you can ever hope for from a film – people want to know if the story is real. Working with viewers’ expectations of filmed information, archive photos, and narration, she crafts stories that make audiences keep asking – when did that happen? Why wasn’t it covered more in the news? I was totally there.

In the film Random Strangers, director Alexis dos Santos captures a more chilling view of young adult life – trying to connect romantically in the Internet world. With his past two features, Glue and Unmade Beds, dos Santos has exhibited a dexterity for making films on the complicated world of young love. And though he recreates the online video and audio, he still maintains pleasant style within the film, giving a personal touch through editing and the use of color. Honest, realistic performances from the actors bring it all together. You may be new to this type of virtual love across continents, but you’ll be able to relate, laugh, and wonder what is possible. Watch Random Strangers in its entirety here: http://vimeo.com/16462208.