Out There :: Screening Shorts During Last Down

We're so glad the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Bowl is over. Fortunately, there was plenty to do on the Arts & Culture front these past few weeks without having to join the City Family in Bending Over for giant corporations of Macho Ballers. In the time it's taken for SF to give the NFL a happy ending, Out There has: Thrilled to San Francisco Ballet's world premiere of choreographer Liam Scarlett's "Fearful Symmetries" set to a John Adams piece, with the composer himself seated directly across the aisle from us; attended a concert of dynamic young organ virtuoso Cameron Carpenter on his state-of-the-art International Touring Organ at SFJazz Center; and cheered on the unveiling of the new Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive [BAMPFA] in its beautiful new arts complex. All this, and no fumbling after sportsballers or their pigskins!

As is our wont, OT screened the commercially released Oscar-nominated short films in anticipation of the 88th Academy Awards ceremony coming up on Sun., Feb. 28. Our brief impressions of the live action and animated short film nominees follow, and we wish we could be more laudatory.

With one exception, the nominees for live action shorts are unrelievedly grim and depressing. In "Ave Maria" (directors Basil Khalil, Eric Dupont ), a car of Israeli settlers breaks down outside a Christian convent in the occupied West Bank. Religious proscriptions clash; it's all intended to be humorous and farcical, but given Middle Eastern reality, it's just completely awful. In Arabic, English and Hebrew.

"Day One" ?(director Henry Hughes) follows an Afghan-American woman working as an interpreter with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Accompanying troops pursuing a bombmaker, she assists a pregnant woman in a grisly childbirth performed under duress. Truly harrowing, and almost unwatchable.

"Shok" ?(director Jamie Donoughue) is set in 1998 Kosovo, where two young Kosovar Albanian boys become collateral damage, one figuratively and one literally, as fascist Serbian aggression leads to the ethnic cleansing of their village. A look back at some hellish recent history, it's not at all pretty.

In "Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)"? (director Patrick Vollrath), a divorced, deranged father kidnaps his innocent eight-year-old daughter, confiscates her phone, and tries to abscond with her abroad. Again: Not really "feel-good" story material.

At long last there's "Stutterer?" (directors Benjamin Cleary, Serena Armitage ). In this, the only light-hearted short of the bunch, a lonely typographer tries to overcome a speech impediment in order to meet an online virtual girlfriend in the flesh. The only live-action short that didn't make us want to slit our wrists, this is OT's choice for taking home the Oscar.

Now some brief impressions of the animated short film nominees, starting with "Bear Story" (directors Gabriel Osorio, Pato Escala).? A sad old bear takes a mechanical diorama out to the street corner. His invention tells the story of a circus bear's hopes to escape and return to his family, from whom he was kidnapped. It's a parable of the plight of "the Disappeared" ?from junta-era Chile.

In "Sanjay's Super Team"? (directors Sanjay Patel, Nicole Grindle ), young Indian-American Sanjay is obsessed with superhero action figures. He bonds with his devout Hindu father by finding the superhero vibe in some awesome Hindu demigods.

Then there's "Prologue" ?(directors Richard Williams, Imogen Sutton), in which Spartan and Athenian warriors battle to the death in an intense struggle witnessed by a little girl. ?In its way, this is a powerful rebuttal to the fantasy hero-worship of Sanjay, since the virile warriors are mortally wounded in horrific ways. The public screening we attended went to great lengths to warn that this short was not intended for children, but perhaps the young are the perfect audience for this anti-war message.

"We Can't Live Without Cosmos"? (director Konstantin Bronzit): Two best friends since childhood realize their dreams of becoming cosmonauts, together enduring the rigors of training. To OT, this one has definite gay overtones: The men are hunky, undergo muscular challenges, and remain tenderly intimate.

At last, the true winner, "World of Tomorrow"? (director Don Hertzfeldt ).?The little girl Emily is taken on a fantastic time voyage by her future clone, who doesn't spare her the cosmic lowdown. This is OT's choice for best in the category, an amusing and imaginative take on our sad state of humanity, trapped in the lures of lucre and seductive technology.

Thai Treasure

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts announced they will present the San Francisco theatrical premiere of "Cemetery of Splendor," the new film by great Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Tropical Malady," "Uncle Boonmee," winner of the 2010 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival), for four days, Thurs.-Sun., March 17-20. Weerasethakul was an artist-in-residence at YBCA in 2004, and is well known to South Asian and international cineastes for his poetic works. He has said in the press that this will be his final feature film based in Thailand due to the current political situation there. He's fought against censorship of his earlier films by the Thai government, and has been a proud advocate for gay rights.

In his new film, a group of soldiers are stricken with a mysterious sleeping sickness. Some believe that as they sleep, they are waging war on behalf of long-dead, nameless kings. It may have to do with an ancient site, it may have to do with monarchic culture, it may have to do with the military. Just sayin'. Ticket and showtimes: YBCA, 701 Mission St., SF, (415) 978-2787, ybca.org