QCShorts and the Case for Local Short Films

While local feature film production persists in slogging through rising costs and dwindling audiences, short films continue to be a beacon of hope, breathing refreshing life into the local film scene.

At the recently concluded QCinema International Film Festival, 20 short films were screened under the QCShorts International banner. Six of these are local grantees courtesy of the festival and Quezon City’s local government.

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Grant-giving for short films is a recurring practice for QCinema. The selection committee receives hundreds of submissions from aspiring filmmakers every year. From then, hundreds of thousands of pesos are given to selected six or more filmmakers who show promise with their scripts and proofs-of-concept. Like any film festival, film selections are a prerogative of the committee that selects them. Although said committee anchors their choices around a thematic core that emanates from filmmakers’ truths. These truths come from filmmakers’ identities and lived experiences.

These may not sound so novel. After all, don't all grant-giving film festivals work this way? But given the duration of the short film, filmmakers are forced to do away with the storytelling tropes of narrative film. They are forced to be economic, encouraged to forge their own techniques. The short film breeds creativity and innovation – this is why they have a refreshing rawness to them.

QCShorts entails one of the most exciting moviegoing experiences a Filipino cinephile could expect in the calendar year. A batch could easily contain one or two films that would end up in their year-ender list. Even the weakest link holds up compared to redundant features.

This year’s batch of local grantees consists of Lysa Catolico and Jazmine Gin Pateña's RUNO!, Lauviah Caliboso’s Ours Was a Timeless Night Burning, The Serrano Sisters' Surface Tension, Gab Rosique's Yelo, Norvin de los Santos' Hoy, Hoy, Ingat!, and Dale Gugudan's Si Kara: Ang Babaye Nga Nag Daba-Daba.

Standouts of this batch are Surface Tension, which is awarded Best Short Film – QCShort Lokal, and Yelo. They are haunting pictures mixing the introspectiveness of desire and the extrospectiveness of urban decay. In the former, competitive swimmer Bulet (Mariana Serrano) finds herself drowning, figuratively and quite literally, during the wedding of a former lover. In the latter, Jessa (Catch Espinosa) is engulfed in jealousy as her friend and object of affection, Candy (Emi Felix), dates a macabre silhouette of a foreigner instead of her. In both films, texture is palpable. Whether it's the glistening sweat, streaks of light, or the grime of film grain.

RUNO! has a simple, yet effective, premise of a pet dog traversing a zombie apocalypse in search of its owner. You’d know what you're gonna get from this film from the start, but emotions will still flood you before its credits roll. It is the only animated film in the selection, and if one is familiar with cartoons, the short format complements the medium.

Hoy, Hoy, Ingat! and Si Kara: Ang Babaye Nga Nag Daba-Daba both operate in the absurd. In Hoy, Hoy, Ingat!, siblings Baby (Alycia Rae Avila) and Bhing (VR Relosa) live out their daydreams while navigating disputes of property and urban settlement. The film weaves comedic chops through the narrative and its actors. Ang Babaye Nga Nag Daba-Daba follows Kara (Emerald Romero) as she inexplicably transforms into a ball of fire. This short banks in the affective power of its images.

The usual criticism aimed at short films is that they’d have better lives as features. This is mostly valid. Like the strongest entries on the selection, Ours Was a Timeless Night Burning hinges on unspoken desires. Maya (Khryzha Bien) and Leith (Euni Manlunas) are two daughters spending a night together as their fathers go out and gamble. At the film’s core is them getting to know each other, exploring their own identities at the same time. However, a lot also happens in the peripheral with their parents’ unexpounded subplots.

Does the film work as is? Yes. Would it work better as a feature-length film that gives ample time to develop all its ideas? Also yes. The same could be said with Hoy, Hoy, Ingat! and Si Kara: Ang Babaye Nga Nag Daba-Daba. This is not a dig against short films, however. In truth, short films command a lot of discipline given the limited duration. If done well, a short would be a concept’s most optimal form. QCinema is one of the few major platforms that merits shorts its due honors. Not only did the festival give filmmakers the chance to realize their visions through grants, it also brought home award-winning shorts that circulated in prestigious festival circuits abroad: Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero’s Agapito, JT Trinidad’s Honey, My Love, So Sweet, and Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan’s Vox Humana.

The hold of classical narrative features on us remains powerful. It’s not a secret that there’s a stigma on short films. Most people, and even filmmakers, think short films are just mere stepping stones to making a feature. It is high time we shift this attitude. Short films require less production time and budget. It also requires less watching time from audiences with dwindling attention spans.

So is the future of Philippine cinema the short film? This claim may be anachronistic, as short films have always been there, at the fringes of the mainstream. Student films and regional films can be a wealth of discussion themselves. Can the short film be a more fitting alternative to movie watching, considering our economic and cultural situation today? Imagine consuming bite-sized delectables that are more appetizing and nutritious than the main course.

John Patrick "Joker" Manio is a freelance culture and film writer whose works have been published in various local broadsheets and magazines.

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