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A New Home for Short Films in London: Shorts on Tap moves to Brick Lane!

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Every month, it's easy to find me and a growing number of faithfuls at Shorts on Tap at the Juno Shoreditch. We enjoy some of the most artful, impressive, bizarre and sometimes hysterical short films from the UK and abroad. The event, helmed by Filippo Polesel and Michele Fiascaris, has become wonderfully popular in recent months, and this week will debut at its new location, the storied Cafe 1001 on Brick Lane. An evening at Shorts on Tap is comprised of a number of pre-selected films divided into three segments. At the top of each segment, any directors in attendance can come up and introduce their films. At the bottom of the segment, the directors return to answer any questions from the jury. The jury is usually made up of directors whose work has previously appeared at Shorts on Tap, and has also included bloggers, journalists, film festival organisers, and the every-day film lover. At the end of the night, the three best films of the evening are chosen, and the winners get ...
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Photograph of Jesus, and an interview with Laurie Hill

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Do you know where I can get a photo of Hitler running in the 1948 Olympics? How about Neil Armstrong in a crowd on the moon? Or maybe ... a photograph of Jesus? These are just some of the wild requests fielded by Getty Images' Hulton Archive in London. In this cleverly edited short, archivist Matthew Butson takes us through a day in the dizzying life of a photo archivist. Enjoy the full film below. It was great fun to get some more info on the makings of this complex and entertaining film with Laurie Hill. Celeste Ramos : The editing in this film is awesome. How did this project come about? Laurie Hill : A number of factors fell together at just the right time. The backstory is that I made Photograph Of Jesus in response to a film challenge using Getty Images archive material - the organisers knew my work and rang me up to see if I'd be interested. I thought I'd take a look, and find out some more to see if it was for me. I was being offered free access to thei...
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Freedom Summer, and an interview with director Stanley Nelson

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"Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?" - Fannie Lou Hamer Before and during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, this was the climate faced by African Americans who wanted to vote and have their voices heard, especially in Mississippi. The Freedom Ride movement in 1961 ignited a chain of events that led to Freedom Summer in 1964, where groups of white activists from the north converged with black activists from the South to plan a landmark initiative: they would go to the homes of African American Mississippians in the summer of 1964 and encourage them to vote. The prospective voters and activists alike faced grave dangers whilst standing up for justice, but they knew something had to be done, even though they faced the possibility of never being seen again. This is the first fil...
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Godka Cirka (A Hole in the Sky), and an interview with co-director Alex Lora

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In Somalia, a young shepherd girl named Alifa enjoys the tasks of her daily life. Tending to her animals and understanding their world is a skill and love handed down to her from her mother and grandmother. But something looms -- an important day draws nearer, bringing with it an act whose details remain in the shadows of her imagination until the moment is at hand. After the act, her future may feel like a parched earth. She will soon be next to undergo genital mutilation. Watch This short film is as touching and beautiful to watch as it is extremely uncomfortable. There is something about the way the creeping approach of the  day hems in the joy or ideas of the future for Alifa, or any of the girls of Beerato who undergo the traditional practice of female genital mutilation. The film screened at this year's Sundance. I was honoured to get such a candid interview with co-director Àlex Lora on how such a difficult film was made, and about the creative unrest that's fuelled ...
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All Flowers in Time, and an interview with director Jonathan Caouette

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Horror fans gather 'round, David Lynch fans get your popcorn, faint-of-hearts cover your eyes and watch this film from between your nervous fingers. This film, is scary. The mysterious synopsis goes like this:  "I am not from this place," declares a French cowboy. An old toothless man asks, "Do you know why you're here?" These shape-shifting personalities infect young children with an evil signal in the form of a Dutch TV show. The red-eyed girls and boys believe they can now become other people and monsters, much to their delight. Watch on Short of the Week Directed by Jonathan Caouette, the renowned filmmaker behind the incredible Tarnation and Walk Away Renee , All Flowers in Time  will probably give me nightmares about televisions for a long time. But I found an interesting subtext in this film, which I think actually contributes to its scariness. Experimental films, especially ones so fantastically in the vein of David Lynch, just bring o...
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Welcome Nowhere, and an interview with director Kate Ryan

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In Lyulin, Bulgaria, a group of over 100 Roma gypsies lived their lives among family and friends. Although the Roma have never been accepted by society at large, in Lyulin they at least had their own space to live their lives and raise their children. When a supermarket chain selected the land the Roma were living on as the location for their new site, the group was brutally moved by authorities into a narrow arrangement of 21 box cars in the capital city of Sofia. This move was meant to last only a few months until suitable accommodations could be built for them by the Bulgarian government, but the plan was abandoned, and the Roma's boxcar housing devolved into a maze of squalor and neglect. Welcome Nowhere takes an unprecedented, haunting look at the lives of the boxcar gypsies, the people dedicated to helping them, and the issues that keep them in a constant state of societal exclusion. Narrated by Ethan Hawke. I was initially attracted to this masterful documentary because like...
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When I Was a Boy, I Was a Girl, and an interview with director Ivana Todorovic

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Goca raised her vibrant niece as if she were her own daughter. She works hard to make ends meet, providing for her family and boyfriend while dreaming of the day when true happiness will come into her life to stay. Although this is a common reality for many, there are still many people in today's world who would think of Goca's life as anything but  normal -- all because Goca is a transvestite. Trailer When I Was a Boy, I Was a Girl  follows 39-year-old Goca over several weeks of her life in Belgrade, Serbia. As she rehearses for a show that's something of a coming out party for her, she deals with the daily challenges of being a single mother with an immature boyfriend, and the trials of being a sex worker. By the time the relationship with her boyfriend is over, and a new relationship begins for her daughter, Goca is left wondering how to make the most and best of her life regardless of society's rules. The film is a portrait as gorgeous as Goca, who always walks wit...
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