Mister Cok is the owner of a large bomb factory. Looking for efficiency and profit, he decides to replace his workers by sophisticated robots. The formers stare helplessly at the toil of the robotic labourers. But one of the workers does not accept being discarded so easily ... Find out more  www.monsieurcok.com

Via Savage Popcorn / Twitch Film

Luke Randall's Reach is the short tale of a tiny robot is given the gift of life with only one limitation, the length of his power cable. Apart from lovely animation, the sound design for teh short is rather impressive to.

Reach is part of The National Film Board of Canada / Cannes Short Film Corner / Youtube online short film competition.

In this short by Joaquin Baldwin "A voodoo doll must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death."

Sebastian's Voodoo is part of The National Film Board of Canada / Cannes Short Film Corner / Youtube online short film competition.

"Dr. Mori, a Japanese psychologist, is selling his brand new, Hi-Tech, revolutionary, completely automatic, state of the art "harakiri-kit" for the whole family!"

This film short is directed by Spiros Jacovides and is part of The National Film Board of Canada / Cannes Short Film Corner / Youtube online short film competition.

The Hyde Tube is the brainchild of Paris-based production company Mr. Hyde. The aim is to showcase the work of short film directors, with a view to connecting them with potential clients. For the rest of us, it's a cool place to kill some time watch some neat little shorts.

The Hyde Tube

d-nice.com is the online home of Derrick Jones better known as D-Nice of seminal rap crew Boogie Down Productions with KRS-One and the late DJ Scott La Rock.

Expanding into visual mediums D-Nice has carved out a niche for himself as a talented Photographer and filmmaker. The highlight of d-nice.com has to be his series of short films featuring "Golden Era" Hip Hop artists "True Hip-Hop Stories". Sadat X of Brand Nubian, Dana Dane and Doitall of Lords Of The Underground are amogst those featured so far.

You can also check out D-Nice's obligatory profile at MySpace

It's time for part 2 in the sometimes series that I like to call Lists here at late Film, with today's rather titularly self-explanatory list coming luke warm off the heels of Fi's Fave Films! - An Alternative List. Back when late night TV was great here in the UK, I would avidly watch short films from the random showings on Channel 4 (some, such as Alison De Vere's The Black Dog, were regulars) to less random collections on Shooting Gallery. For as long as I've loved film, I've loved short film, for there is something so powerful and emotive in these short few minutes. Yes indeed, I loves me a short film, and here is my pick of top 5 fave's...

1. The Tale Of The Rat That Wrote (Billy O'Brien, 1999)

Anyone who knows me will tell you I just simply adore rodents, so it's probably unsurprising, then, that my favorite short would feature a rat. Any rat owners out there will also tell you that rats are extremely loving, intelligent creatures and this 14-minute UK/Ireland short explores this. As the title suggests, this is one rather creative rat which can both draw and write and uses the unusual powers invested within it to help out its ratty friends. Black & white and largely silent, this tale of ratty retribution is gorgeous on the visual front as well as the story.

Available to view as an extra on the DVD of Billy O'Brien's feature-length film Isolation.

2. Forklift Driver Klaus ( Stefan Prehn and Jorg Wagner, 2000)

This German instructional video spoof is a glorious 9 minutes of comedy/horror caper. Featuring the hapless Klaus (Konstantin Graudus,) we get involved in his unfortunate shenanigans as he pays little attention to his safety rules on the first day of his new job. Needless to say, much comedy carnage ensues and all set to a lovely bit of muzak. An absolute must for short film fans into the comedy/horror genre.

Watch it here.

3. The French Doors (Steve Ayson, 2002)

This 13-minute New Zealand short was a late night on Channel 4 fave and among my dear collection on crappy, taped VHS. But, no matter, for this little flick is an absolute corker. Barnie Duncan plays an unnamed man doing a spot of home renovation and installs the titular doors. So far so nice and fine and sunny, but before long things take a turn for the darker in more ways than one. Genuinely a very neat and unnerving film.

Watch it here.

4. Talk (Lukas Moodysson, 1997)

I caught this 14-minute Swedish short as an extra on the Lukas Moodysson boxset after watching Show Me Love, and it was love at first sight. Birger (Sten Ljunggren) is out of work and out of company until a Hare Krishna recruitment girl calls at his door. This film appeals to me as, if I ever made a short, apart from a wish to make a creature feature or horror film, I would most likely make a study of loneliness, and that is in essence what Talk is. It's pretty harrowing stuff and rather devestatingly darker than you might expect, but all the more beautiful for it.

Available to view as an extra on the Lukas Moodysson boxset DVD with the superb Show Me Love and Together.

5. Pencil Face (Dandy Dwarves, 2008)

This cheeky little number just snuck in to my top 5 fave short films not 2 days ago for its rather deliciously dark and strange ways. Quite literally featuring a large pencil with a face, this is a stunningly surreal warning to be careful what you greedily wish for...

Watch it here.

Rarely have I been so enamoured by a short film that it promptly asceneds to the lofty heights of My Favourite Shorts. But, such was the case with Dandy Dwarves' Pencil Face. So who are Dandy Dawrves and what is Pencil Face? The Double D's are "a multidisciplinary production company formed in 2006," or core group of various creative types, and Pencil Face is, well, Pencil Face. Literally featuring a large pencil with a face, this 3.22-minute short is so deliciously dark and surreal that it is a rare treat to be consumed with relish. But, you'd better see for yourselves...

Alive In Joburg is a short documentary style Sci-Fi film by Neill Blomkam, the South African aspiring director and FX guy behind the dancing robot Citroen commercial. Neil was rumoured to be penciled in to direct the Halo movie, but with that ground to a halt his first full length movie it set to be District 9 (Which appears to be based on Alive In Joburg).

Automatic Vaudeville Studios short animated film What They Ate.

Un Chant d 'amour (song Of Love) is the only film by homosexual French writer Jean Genet. The film which was made in 1950 is just 26 minutes long, shot in black and white and completely silent. Originally made for Parisian gay porn collectors the film only had one public showing in Paris when it was first completed. In the 60's Jonas Mekas smuggled the print into US with a little bit of help from playright Harold Pinter. Mekas showed the film in New York which resulted in his arrest and one of the big censorship cases of the 1960's. Cult Epics have now released this film with a new transfer and in it's complete form for the first time on widley available DVD in North America.

Un chant d 'amour is set in a prison and revolves around three characters, two of whom are incarcerated prisoners and the third a prison warder. Trapped, repressed and lonely the prisoners long for each other with their desires becoming very auto erotic. As they relive themselves in the only way they can, the ever watchful warder becomes drawn to their pent up passions. It's soon clear that his routine peeps are much less about security checks, than they are about sexual voyeurism. The film has no real narrative as such and has been likened to a visual representation of a poem, which I think is about an accurate description as you can get.

Genet himself had spent some time in prison during his youth and combined with his own sexual persuasion it's obviously subject matter he could relate to. Being straight myself the erotic elements are lost on me, but I can appreciate it as pure filmmaking. the film was filmed to be silent and is presented here without any form of audio track, not even the period cinema organ track that normally accompany modern presentations of silent film. I must admit that I found the complete lack of audio oddly stressful, as a modern viewer (in my case at least) your brain is so used to audio accompanying visuals that you feel stressed waiting for sounds that never come. Visually the films blend of confined sexual reality and flights of sexual fantasy play off each other like poetic chorus and verse. The black and white lends itself naturally to a noir look Genet uses the contrast and shadows well. The film is semi pornographic in that it does featuring snippets of male masturbation, but the majority of the films eroticism is subjective both director and through symbolism. In fact because of its silence and lack of narrative it would be fair to argue that it is symbolism that drives the piece.

Those involved were not actors by profession, but they do a brilliant job of conveying sexual frustration and love from behind a wall. There are moments in this which will probably have all but the most liberal straight male feeling slightly uncomfortable as a hairy man runs his hands over sweaty chest and feels his genitals. Or the handsome almost archetypal attractive gay man prisoner next door fondles his penis while covered in glistening oil. There's also fantasies of muscley fellows stroking each others bodies which took things just a little too camp for me, but that's a minor concern and at the end of the day the target audience was gay men all be it that the film was so well made it's appeal spread to fans of artist film gay and straight alike. If you can handle watching homoerotic imagery and let's face it political correctness aside it's not something everyone is comfortable with then this is arguably a striking and important bit of film making.

The DVD includes and optional introduction by Jonas Mekas which is interesting and well worth listening to. As is the commentary by filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Both give insight into the films place in history, its production and some of its meaning. The second disc features a 52 minute documentary on Genet and a 46 minute interview with him.

The transfer is maybe not as impressive as I would have liked. There is still visible print damage and it does suffer with artifacing (pixilation) at times. It’s a bit of a shame because I'm sure there is a certain amount of contrast lost which would add to the films beauty. How ever I imagine this is a pretty specialist item and there seems to have only ever been one print certainly not many more than a couple anyway, so Cult Epics have done a pretty good job with the available materials.

This is maybe not a film for the fan boys out there, but those with an interest in Gay and Lesbian cinema, particularly from a more restricted time like the 1950's will want to put this in their collection. Certainly fans of Jean Genet will be pleased with the extras here and as someone who knew very little about him going into this they really did make the DVD worthwhile. I can't say for sure because of my own orientation, but I get the feeling this film may well still work as erotica for those who don't require out and out porn. Those who are interested in the pure aesthetics of filmmaking will also have good reason to own this as it’s a master class visual symbolism on film and though the lack of sound stressed me in a way it does mean you really take time to ingest and dissect the visual experience in your mind.

8/10

www.cultepics.com

Buy it: amazon.com

A Wicked Tale is a 45 minute independent film written and directed by award winning filmmaker Tzang Merwyn Tong (e'Tzaintes, 2003). The experimental thriller can be described as a psycho-erotic re-imagination of the Little Red Riding Hood story. It relates a little girl's fascination with the forbidden and deals with the theme of seduction and manipulation. 

Tickets were sold out when A Wicked Tale made its World Premiere at the 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The movie has since won the Gold Remi Award at the 2005 Houston WorldFest. It was also a surprise hit at the 2005 Montreal FanTasia Film Festival.

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Official Website

That Swedish guy's acting seems (If you will pardon my language) f**king terrible, but the little string puppets look pretty "wicked".