Caught Short Film Festival

Caught Short turns 5 this September and to celebrate has dipped deep into the vault to curate a special retrospective program reaching all the way back to the first year! Showcasing work from four states and spanning range of styles including documentary, animation, drama and comedy, the September 3rd program will celebrate independent film exhibition in Sydney and showcase Australia’s short filmmaking talent with films, drinks and tunes to boot!

Renowned for its relaxed, non-competitive style with a strong filmmaker Q&A focus, caught short has screened almost 400 films since its inception in 2004. Serving up a monthly dose of mixed bag selections, at the ever-fabulous TAP Gallery in downtown Darlinghurst, caught short has recently curated programs themed around Mardi Gras, Halloween and Silent Cinema.

Retrospective Program highlights:

The Goat that Ate Time Dir Lucinda Schreiber
A beautiful animation from UTS in Sydney, chosen as the audience favourite at the 2007 Golden Eye Awards and winner of the prestigious 2007 IF Award for Best Short Animation.

Vend Dir James Findlay
A whimsical, sci-fi fantasy about freedom, opportunity and dispensing with reality, whilst dispensing soft drink.
Winner of the 2006 St Kilda Film Festival, and 3rd prize at the Californian Brainwash Movie Festival.

The Morning After Dir Daniel Knight
A shocktastic classic from Snowgum films in Victoria: Emily is about to have a very bad morning. So bad in fact, she’s going to have to chew off her right arm. Self mutilation has never been so much fun in this insanely violent and bloody comedy!

Fritz Gets Rich Dir Eddie White and James Calvert
Long before they won Animation Hotshop of the year and had Nick Cave narrate The Cat Piano, the Peoples Republic Of Animation told the cautionary tale of Fritz who wakes to find a shiny one-dollar coin beside his bed when his first tooth falls out.

Rob Tim Tom
Dir Brendon Killen
Winner of Best Film at the 2007 Harmony Film Festival, this wonderfully warm doco draws us into Robert Smith’s world.

Top Shelf
Dir Marta Tesoro
Multi Award winning annimation from RMIT in Melbourne, first screened at caught short in late 2004 on VHS!! Child beauty pageant winner Abigail Whine and her last few hours spent in a downtown toy store.

Another Year Gone
Dir Harriet McDonald
A beautiful and creative pastiche animation from our favourite Tasi sisters now off conquering Europe.

Join us for a pre-screening bevie or grab a bite at the Tap Gallery café. Don’t miss your chance to chat with the filmmakers in the Q&A sessions! PLUS win tix to Ana Kokkinos’ new film BLESSED thanks to Icon Films or a special industry prize thanks to METROSCREEN.

What: Caught Short’s 5th Birthday celebrations; screening followed by free drinks and live music
When: Thursday 3rd September
Time: 7.30pm for 8pm screening
Where: Tap Gallery, 278 Palmer St (just off Oxford St), Darlinghurst
Cost: $10/$5

July’s Caught Short screening - exploring alternative parenting techniques, the future of the sickie, drug experimentation on Christian doorknockers, and a quest to ‘relate’ to Mel Gibson - provided much comic relief and mutual short film lovin’; the perfect cure any post SFF/EOFY/winter blues.

Our enormous thanks to all filmmakers and audience members for making it a great night. Thanks also to our dear friends at ICON for providing a swag of passes to DISGRACE to give away and of course METROSCREEN for their continued support and goodie bags.

Lock in your next date with caught short: 6 August and 3 September for our 5th Birthday bash!

A lively night of docos entertained a near full house at our favourite Gallery TAP on May 7, fuelling laughs, tears and debate amongst the enthusiastic crowd.
Claire Wildish’s My Granny was a moving account of her mother’s journey with cancer, told from the perspective of her young child. To the delight of the crowd she arrived up with the recovering star of the film in tow and together they fielded an insightful and touching Q&A.

A little lighter was Mine’s Bigger Than Yours, Natasha Sutevski’s humorous comparison of Aussie male car culture and the Blue Spotted Peacock. The audience well and truly put her through the ropes wanting to know everything from animation techniques she used to her motivations behind the subject matter.

A Shade of Purple’s director Skan Aryurapong spoke to the crowd about his own experiences as a young Thai director learning his trade down under and Dianne Ellis shared stories of stopping random strangers on the street in her hunt to find the true spirit of Leichhardt in Pizza, Pasta, Passione. While Number 1 Fan’s team couldn’t make it, producer Red Palmer sent a moving account of seeing Laurie Nichols ‘at the ground’ as a child which resonated with the whole audience, especially our own festival co-ordinator Sarah who is probably Balmain’s Number 2 fan.

All up a cracking night that proved Docs really do Rock! Stay tuned for the June Caught Short when we return to our roots: random chaos and our promiscuous love for shorts in all their weird and wonderful forms.

Caught Short celebrated MARDI GRAS last week with a queer focused program, including AFTRS short ROPE BURN, the award winning FILLED WITH WATER and doco COMING OUT! Thanks again to our fabulous drag king HUGO RETRO and all filmmakers in attendance.

Our next screening THURSDAY 2nd of APRIL will be a mixed bag of local flicks. Stay tuned for full program details or sign up to our facebook group for regular updates.

See you at TAP!