Original Cinema

The theme for the Florida Film Festival this year is Original Cinema with Cin underlined. This of course stressing all that is sinful and sexy in film. The animated shorts screening that I attended was a fun romp. My favorite was a short called “Tales of Mere Existence” by Lev Yilmaz. It really isn’t animation, it is more like half finished drawings that are completed while the narrator talks about the simple futility of his relationships. It was non stop laugh out loud funny and the narration read very much like the inner monologue of a blog. My second favorite short was “Horn Dog” by Bill Plimpton. In this short a rather scruffy bug eyes male mutt falls madly in love with an sleek slender dog but in his pursuit of love all goes horribly wrong. Very funny stuff.
Bill Plimpton attended the screening and was going to do a meet and greet afterwards. I had to get to work right after the screening so I actually had to sneak out before the last short was finished. I am glad I did because Bill, (notice we are on a first name basis now!) was in the lobby talking to a few people. I noticed him but I might be late to work, great excuse, so I headed out the door. I stopped myself once I was outside. That was Bill Plimpton, I at least had to shake his hand. So I turned on my heal went back in and marched up the the small group of people he was with and held out my hand. I beamed like an adolescent and told him I was a fan of all his films. He thanked me, and then we swapped stories about our childhoods, simpler times and the joys of creating animation (just kidding, I wish). I rushed off to work but felt great. In the world of animation Bill is a huge celebrity.