by Georgia Thompson
My first I’m With Geek team outing took me to a dark bar on a side street just off Brick Lane, where a few of the other film girls and I perched precariously on wooden tables to the side of a plethora of mis-matched furniture. We had come to watch a variety of shorts from Shorts on Tap, and the room was packed and excited to see what the evening’s various directors had in store for us.
My first I’m With Geek team outing took me to a dark bar on a side street just off Brick Lane, where a few of the other film girls and I perched precariously on wooden tables to the side of a plethora of mis-matched furniture. We had come to watch a variety of shorts from Shorts on Tap, and the room was packed and excited to see what the evening’s various directors had in store for us.
In honour of the momentous occasion the following day (the Scottish referendum), the theme was ‘Beyond Scotland’. We saw seven short films, all brimming with delicious accents, around the subject of Scotland, the Scottish people, and the referendum itself. From the bizarre – King by Ronnie B Goodwin was just a minute, featured a Scottish king in battle, and baffled pretty much everyone there – to the intense – Chappin’ by Igor Slepov was a mini-documentary about a school boy heading up the ‘Yes’ campaign in Glasgow, and was captivating, moving, and one has to assume empowering for anyone watching. The kid can’t have been older than 17 and here he was talking to packed rooms of voters, eloquently and passionately pitching his reasons to the masses. Igor Slepov’s dark and misleading introduction served only to enhance the moment we realise that the activist is, in fact, so very young.
After an interval that quite frankly felt three times as long as it was, we got back in to the films. Tumult was, quite frankly, utterly bizarre, and I don’t think I could put in to words what happened, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it (I’ve never known so many people to laugh so heartily at decapitation). My absolute favourite has to be The Strange Death of Harry Stanley by Jeremiah Quinn. This ten minute short detailed the horrific death of Harry Stanley, who was murdered by the police after the table leg he was carrying was mistaken for a gun. The true impact of the forgotten news piece was relived and expressed excellently by the director, who made the film more humane than the truth and then corrected it with captions.
Whilst the evening descended in to somewhat of a political debate on more than one occasion – something I don’t think any of us were prepared for – some of the films were excellent and captivating, and if we had been up to scratch with our politics I think the audience interaction would have been fabulous – as it was for those who knew what they were talking about.
Bravo, Shorts On Tap – I can’t wait for the next event!
After an interval that quite frankly felt three times as long as it was, we got back in to the films. Tumult was, quite frankly, utterly bizarre, and I don’t think I could put in to words what happened, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it (I’ve never known so many people to laugh so heartily at decapitation). My absolute favourite has to be The Strange Death of Harry Stanley by Jeremiah Quinn. This ten minute short detailed the horrific death of Harry Stanley, who was murdered by the police after the table leg he was carrying was mistaken for a gun. The true impact of the forgotten news piece was relived and expressed excellently by the director, who made the film more humane than the truth and then corrected it with captions.
Whilst the evening descended in to somewhat of a political debate on more than one occasion – something I don’t think any of us were prepared for – some of the films were excellent and captivating, and if we had been up to scratch with our politics I think the audience interaction would have been fabulous – as it was for those who knew what they were talking about.
Bravo, Shorts On Tap – I can’t wait for the next event!
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