The first edition of the Shortest Day, a major short film festival initiated by the CNC, will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, December 21, 2011.
On this occasion, numerous events, including 1,800 screenings, are already planned all over France!
Major Parisian cultural institutions are supporting short films and offering special programs for this December 21st.
A small collection of Parisian tips for this day:
- The public will be able to discover 4 films by Méliès all day long, in the heart of the Montparnasse train station, on 3 giant screens.
- The Centre Pompidou is offering its visitors a selection of works from its collections dealing with temporality in video art, “Even Shorter.” Michel Gondry, patron of the Shortest Day, is also being honored with a retrospective evening of his short films.
- The Musée du Quai Branly is drawing from its collections to offer the best of its short film co-productions (Arts of the Myth series, short films from Ateliers Varan) as well as programming for children with One Minute at the Museum, which explores 40 iconic objects from the collections in 60 seconds. The museum is also hosting ethnologist Laurent Pellé for a presentation of 3 short films by Jean Rouch made in Mali and Niger.
- The Musée d’Orsay is implementing a dual setup: a screening of the short film series The Museum Dances in the Auditorium starting at 2:30 PM, and online streaming of the One Minute at the Museum and History series.
- The Cité de l’Architecture will be screening films about architecture all day on December 21st.
- At the Cité de la Musique, the Music Museum is presenting two documentaries and a selection of experimental films from the 20s and 30s to coincide with the Paul Klee: Polyphonies exhibition.
- “Courts et Crève” evening at the Bric à Brac bar, 108 rue Oberkampf Paris 75011 (Ménilmontant metro station).
- La Fémis, the prestigious film school, is mobilizing its students to screen short films in public spaces all around its premises, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. An open and eclectic program is being offered to residents, with sessions at the Centre Barbara (Music Shorts), in recreational centers (Recess Shorts), and at the Bretonneau Hospital.
- Short film screenings and a directing workshop at the Péniche Cinéma.
Special programming is, of course, being organized around short films in many libraries across France and at the Cinémathèque Française.
Another initiative: major theater chains are scheduling short films before feature films, a practice that was traditional for a long time then unfortunately abandoned… and is now returning thanks to the Shortest Day!
