A Decade of Wonder (PCFF Shorts Collection)

ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION

Celebrating ten years of presenting many wonderful films from many places! This reel is a walk down memory lane with creative short films from the past nine Festivals: a janitor gets a crash course in basketball, two films inspired by They Might Be Giants songs, and an Oscar-winning story about a bear who escapes from a cruel circus act. Be forewarned, you may encounter a toe-tapping earworm or two (“Electric Car” comes to mind).

Film lineup is subject to change without notice.

3 X 3
A cocky gym security guard flaunts his basketball shooting skills to the school janitor. Time for the janitor to break out the physics playbook to demonstrate how brains beats brawn every time.
Portugal, 2009 / no dialogue / Nuno Rocha / 6 min / Live Action

Autumn Leaves
This beautifully shot film follows a young girl trying to get to school on time––buuut sometimes you need to stop and pick a pomegranate! Right?
Iran, 2015 / no dialogue / Saman Hosseinpuor / 4 min / Live Action

Bear Story (Historia de un oso)
This Academy Award-winning animated film from Chile recounts a story within a story. Every day an old bear goes to a street corner to sell viewings to a tin marionette theater he has made. Using his life story as this theater’s narrative you understand what his personal struggle has been and how he wishes for it to end.
Chile, 2014 / no dialogue / Gabriel Osorio Vargas / 10 min / Animation

Cows
A simple and stylish animation by Sandra Boynton showing an all-out Broadway number performed by sincere yet overambitious bovines. The song is performed by The Seldom Herd (an enthusiastic fictitious group.)
USA, 2015 / English / Sandra Boynton / 3 min / Animation

Davy Crockett
The walls of a preschool classroom come to life to retell the legacy of American folk hero, Davy Crockett. You may not be familiar with this version of history!
USA, 2010 / English / Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata & David Cowles / 4 min / Animation

Electric Car
Animals come out of hiding as an electric car rolls silently across the landscape. The driver, a girl and her dog, welcome the world to join them as they journey into a new day.
USA, 2009 / English / Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata / 2 min / Animation

Just Breathe
Adults can learn much from the wisdom of children. This short film captures kids defining how anger makes them feel and how they know a way to make it go away.
USA, 2014 / English / Julie Bayer, Josh Salzman / 4 min / Documentary

Much Better Now
This is a tale of a bookmark freed from its closed-book captivity who finds an ocean’s worth of adventure on its pages.
Switzerland, 2012 / English / Salon Alpin / 6 min / Animation

Negative Space
Based on a poem by Ron Koertge. This is a sad story of a father and son who did not seem to bond over much in life except in one area, packing luggage.
France, 2018 / English / Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata / 6 min / Animation

Octopus
Baking a cake should be much easier with eight arms, but that’s only if all arms agree on what cake they’re going to make!
Germany, 2015 / no dialog / Julia Ocker / 3 min / Animation

Parallelostory
Spend a couple minutes in this multiverse and you may be comfortable enough to participate in your own parallelostory, which is just hip, meta-universe slang for “parallel love story.” But remember, this is only one of an infinite number renderings of the same story that your dimensional alternates will have already viewed, are viewing, or will view.
USA, 2009 / no dialog / Kelly Meador, Daniel Elwing / 3 min / Animation

Scared is Scared
Director Bianca Giaever asks a 6-year-old to suggest a movie plot. He proceeds to invent a tale of a bear and a mouse, but it soon veers off into thoughts about monsters, pizza and how to live a happier life.
USA, 2013 / English / Bianca Giaever / 8 min / Live Action

Bookmobile
The true story (as recited in a StoryCorps segment) of a young Indian girl working as a seasonal laborer picking crops in Washington State. Surrounded by abuse and wishing there was more to life, a bookmobile arrives and changes her life.
USA, 2016 / English / Julie Zammarchi / 4 min / Animation

Wind
In this animated short a dramatic, constant wind blows, creating strange yet effective behaviors of the people subjected to the gusts. Only when the wind stops do things get “unnatural.”
Germany, 2013 / no dialog / Robert Löbel / 4 min / Animation

Young(ish)
Sometimes it takes a film like this one to remind you that EVERYONE was a kid at one time. By all appearances you would think this elderly couple desires nothing more than a good bench to sit on in the park. Little do the kids know they want the playground PIRATE SHIP!!
USA, 2012 / English / Renee Felice Smith / 7 min / Live Action