By Austin Dale
The 2011 New York Film Festival has announced its two shorts programs, totaling 13 films. They include Stephen Kang’s “Blue,” which won the Grand Prix from Cannes Critics Week and “The Great Gatsby in Five Minutes,” Michael Almereyda’s adaptation of the novel, set in contemporary Los Angeles.
Also of note is “Traitors,” the half-hour directing debut of actor Sean Gullette, who may be best known as the lead in Darren Aronofsky’s first feature, “Pi.”
Here’s the full list, broken into its two programs.
SHORTS PROGRAM #1
Total running time: 92 minutes
Tuesday, October 4 at 1:30PM – Howard Gilman Theater
Saturday, October 15 at 2:30PM – Francesca Beale Theater
THE BIRD SPIDER (La Migala) (2011) 14min
Director: Jaime Dezcallar
Country: Spain
A lovelorn man enters into a deadly game of chance when he intentionally sets a poisonous arachnid loose in his apartment.
BLUE (2011) 14min
Director: Stephen Kang
Country: New Zealand
The life and hard times of a human-sized plush toy, formerly a children’s TV star, now a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Winner, Grand Prix, Cannes Critics Week.
THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF (2011) 11min
Director: Jessica Brickman
Country: USA
Death is both an aid and an impediment to romantic bliss in this wry comedy about the mourning after, co-starring Fran Kranz and Jason Ritter.
GRAFFITIGER (2010) 10min
Director: Libor Pixa
Country: Czech Republic
A lonely graffiti-drawn tiger wanders the walls and sidewalks of Prague looking for companionship.
THE RUNNER (2011) 15min
Director: Ana Lazarevic
Country: Serbia and Montenegro/USA
In the lush and weedy Serbian countryside, a first time human trafficker becomes stranded with the Roma boy he is assigned to deliver.
THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS (2011) 28min
Director: Ari Aster
Country: USA
In the picture-perfect Johnson family, a scandalous secret bubbles to the surface with outrageous, darkly comic complications
SHORTS PROGRAM #2
Total running time: 88 minutes
Wednesday, October 5 at 1:30PM – Howard Gilman Theater
Saturday, October 15 at 4:30PM – Francesca Beale Theater
AARON BURR, PART 2 (2011) 8min
Director: Dana O’Keefe
Country: USA
You only thought you knew all there was to know about the much-maligned third Vice President of the United States.
THE GREAT GATSBY IN FIVE MINUTES (2011) 10min
Director: Michael Almereyda
Country: USA
The Fitzgerald classic as you’ve never seen it, transposed to a Los Angeles of sleek modern architecture and strip-mall foot clinics.
MEMORY BY DESIGN (2011) 5min
Director: Nathan Punwar
Country: USA
A dazzling love letter to all things analog, as they recede into the horizon of the digital age.
MY BOW BREATHING (Il respiro dell’arco) (2011) 10min
Director: E.M. Artale
Country: Italy
Revenge has the sting of a perfectly aimed arrow as a young archer gets in touch with her primal instincts.
GRANDMOTHERS (Abuelas) (2011) 9min
Director: Afarin Eghbal
Country: UK
A lyrical animated documentary about the search by Argentinian grandmothers for the orphaned children of the “disappeared.”
FIRST MATCH (2011) 15min
Director: Olivia Newman
Country: USA
No amount of practice on the mat can prepare Mo for the challenge she faces at her first high school wrestling match.
TRAITORS (2011) 31min
Director: Sean Gullette
Country: Morocco/USA
A night in the lives of an all-girl punk band as they illicitly shoot their first music video on the streets of Tangier.
