Short films tend to rely heavily on clever ideas and small budgets, but more so on the sort of 'Damn, wish I'd thought of that' feeling. This feeling, dear readers, is a rare and painfully exotic one to those generally attending film school short fests. I am qualified to make this damning statement because I was in film school for a year and have sat through many, many said student film fests. In fact we can safely say (or should I say I can safely say because this is my review, not yours) that having a solid script and then skillfully crafting it into a nimble little film is similar to an endangered species. It's like the Giant Panda of the film world. That said, I can safely report that my evening at Elam Past and Present was like seeing a whole herd of Giant Pandas.

The films, with the exception of three, were smoothly assembled and organised. On the whole, it was a pleasantly run evening. Luckily we had the comfort of seeing such a strong collection in the Academy Cinema, a sponsor to the event. The venue was well chosen, but an intermission would have been strongly welcomed halfway through. But enough shop, let's get back to the pandas.

Briar March began the evening with a speech outlining her own foray into film after graduating from Elam. She went on to show a trailer for her documentary, Allie Eagle and Me, which screened at the New Zealand International Film Fest, and whose premiere I attended. I found her difficulties surrounding the general release of the film amusing and pertinent, especially in terms of the ridiculous hoo ha one has to go through in order to get permission over images and legal business for a film's release. She screened two fairly mediocre music videos that she had produced in the past year, both bands I was completely unaware of. However, it was her commercial for ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) that knocked my socks off. I'll be looking forward to seeing whatever work she's currently churning away at. The other graduate, Florian Habicht, was unable to attend because of his impeding feature film preparations. His short 16 minute Inbetween Moments (1995) was a terrific ending to the evening. It's always tricky to choose the last few films of a set, due to your audience's waning interest and numb posteriors, but Habicht's film was visually stunning, cunningly written, and very much worth the applause it received.

The dozen films that followed March's talk each deserve a more thorough review, but as I am not inclined to expound on them all, here are a few highlights:

» Breaking News (Monica de Alwis)
Started the aforementioned clever idea theme which continued throughout the evening. Her film's concept was uncomplicated and straightforward, but that in and of itself is essential to the makings of a Great Short Film. She has a stronghold on this format and in simple terms – I'd love to see more of her work.

» Untitled (Daisuke Yoshizawa)
At the risk of sounding completely wanky, this was an unconventional documentary. In addition to this (and maybe a little less pouncy) was the realism of the event itself, sans interviews, and the usual 'this is what happened' depositions. Instead Yoshizawa manages to communicate the emotional resonance of a murder upon the killers themselves via a view select moments of the trial and a little necessary sound to explain the situation. What's even more brilliant is that this guy manages to not only keep, but own our attention for five minutes and thirty seconds with this abstractly expressionistic work.

» Hallway (Tim van Dammen)
There's something so downright pleasing about a film that's so well shot and a solid idea so well executed. It was very satisfying to be able to give van Dammen a high five after this one.

» Have You Met Matthew Kneebone? (Rua Acorn)
This was a welcome lighter piece that was edited with a great amount of finesse. Acorn's ability to get some great material was not wasted with his perfect comedic timing.

» We Tried but There was Nothing We Could Do (Richard Frater)
Beautifully shot and executed underwater short. The entire film is just a beautiful moment, I kept thinking that any still from it would make a great piece of art.—KL

» elampastandpresent.com