COVID-19 hasn’t been great for film festivals. It’s been a year and a half since the pandemic started and many film festivals are still screening films mostly virtually. Only a few are hosting a few in-person screenings here in the U.S. as cases start to decline.
Unlike most film festivals that were either cancelled, delayed, or hosted virtually last year for the first time, the Long Distance Film Festival started as a virtual festival to highlight indie short films affected by the lack of distribution or streaming options during the pandemic. This year, for it’s second edition, it continued to highlight a mix of low budget and experimental short films that might have otherwise struggled to find distribution. Read on to find out more about the format and the films.
The Experience
Like other virtual film festivals, the Long Distance Film Festival 2021 was pretty easy to watch. There were no hitches with streaming any of the films – the quality always looked good and there were no buffering issues. The only slight drawback was that you had to watch them through an internet browser on your computer or phone. Unlike other film festivals which screened films through apps that you could connect to your TV or Smart TV, you had to manually connect your computer to the TV if you wanted to have the ‘bigger’ screen experience.
It was also interesting to watch a virtual film festival that had a strict schedule like traditional in-person film festivals. Each short film segment streamed at 3 specific times during the day, so if you couldn’t make the times, you’d have to wait until the next segment or next year’s edition. The three different times helped a little bit, but as they were spaced out deliberately to help viewers in all different time zones, there might have just been one or two times that worked well for you. For those on the West Coast of the U.S. the viewing times were 1:00am, 9:00am, and 5:00pm, making the 5:00pm session the most ideal time slot for those wanting to sleep in on the weekend.
You also couldn’t pause the film like other virtual festivals have allowed. This meant you had to pay a bit more attention to the films as they all ran back to back and were all pretty short. Because a few of them aired without credits, if you tried to step away quickly, you risked missing a chunk of the end of one short and the start of the other.
It would have been nicer to have been able to watch the films on demand, however as these films were streaming for free, we can’t complain. Long Distance Film Festival keep doing your thing.
The Films
In 2021, the Long Distance Film Festival continued to support personal films made with smaller budgets and crews. This was definitely evident in the programming. It was nice to see a wide range of formats which included documentary, drama, diary, experimental, animated, and more. However, it would have been nice to see a bit more diversity in the filmmaker line up as the festival schedule, which emphasizes viewers being able to watch from wherever in the world they are, implies that the programming slate will be geographically diverse too. Just 6 of the 42 films came from outside the western world (2 from Latin America, 3 from the Middle East/North Africa, and 1 from East Asia). Unfortunately there was no representation from Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, South Asia, or most of Latin America. Obviously it’s hard to cover every region, but would be good to see a bit more diversity next year if possible.
One area which some festivals have actively sought to change was the proportion of films directed by women at their festivals. AFI Fest 2020 did this well, with 53% of their films directed by women. The 2021 edition of the Long Distance Film Festival performed pretty well too. Whilst it wasn’t quite 50%, the festival did hit 45% for films directed by women.
Top 10 Shorts of the Long Distance Film Festival 2021
- Bambirak (Germany) – a daughter helps her immigrant dad with his daily deliveries for a bit of bonding time. Through their journey, this drama highlights how white privilege and prejudice is maintained by the status quo.
- Trammel (U.S.) – watch the camera shots as they get slowly closer and closer to Dale and the shop clerk he’s chatting too. It turns Dale’s one-way conversation from a luxury into something he needs for his mental health.
- Intimate Views (U.S.) – this short hypnotizes you into a long weekend away at a secluded holiday home in the woods. It’s a setting which never feels far from a horror twist, especially with the AI and ASMR voiced narration which gives plenty of dystopian vibes.
- Recreation (U.S.) – with the screen split into twelve showing different tourist shot footage of the same iconic American landscapes, Recreation transforms sacred natural sites into meaningless footage representative of American imperialism’s continued consumerization and eradication of indigenous culture.
- Shadows in a Landscape (U.K.) – can’t beat a storytelling short that slowly builds with the help of music and ghostly black and white footage of misty hills. It’s hauntingly engrossing.
- The Other (Iran) – the rural environment and sparse interiors of The Other make it stand out. They and the actors expressions speak the story in a film without dialogue.
- To the Girls that Looks Like Me (U.S.) – using many extras and a poetic narrated voice-over, this short celebrates black women living in a society that appropriates rather than respects them.
- Peeps (Australia) – as most filmmakers are adults, it’s rare to find films that accurately capture the awkwardness of life as an early teenager. Peeps, like Eighth Grade, is one of them.
- Raspberry (U.S.) – who would have thought that you could make a slapstick comedy out of a family grieving over their dead dad’s body. Raspberry is evidence that it’s possible.
- Forever (U.S.) – Whether this would be classified as an animation or a drama isn’t clear. However, what is clear, is that the experimental use of LiDAR imaging makes this film examining mortality memorably unique.
Honorable Mentions: Still Processing, Wooden Sword, You Don’t Have to Thank Me
Visit our Long Distance Film Festival 2021 page for our full coverage of the 2nd edition of the festival.
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