As summer intern season gears up it’s encouraging to see an example of an industry leader who started as a volunteer, then became an intern and just a few years later, was running the place. Meet Eileen Arandiga, Festival Director of the Worldwide Short Film Festival, who is presently battening the hatches for the 16th annual edition of the fest running June 1 – 6.
When I suggest to Arandiga that she must be a real go-getter to have scaled the ranks so quickly, she demurs saying, “Well, I definitely persevere. I’ve always been an arts administrator and I have a genuine passion for short film. I love the challenge of working for a festival; no two days are ever the same. I also really like that the staff is often quite young, recent graduates who are full of enthusiasm, it’s nice to see them flourish.”
Arandiga was mentored by previous WSFF Director Shane Smith who now works for TIFF, which is where several of the current WSFF staffers came from. Others are at Worldwide Short following stints at Sprockets and Hot Docs. “It’s definitely a training ground,” confirms Arandiga. “The festival world is quite a small community.”
There’s nothing small about this year’s shorts festival. WSFF, which is owned and operated by the Canadian Film Centre, ranks as North America’s largest showcase and marketplace (France’s Clermont-Ferrand is the world’s biggest). This year the Toronto festival drew 4,046 submissions which were culled down to a wide-ranging showcase of 281 shorts, the vast majority of which have never been screened here before.
It’s easy to forget that 20 or 30 years ago short films were regularly shown at cinemas as a lead-up to the main attraction. And while those days are mostly long gone — Pixar features are often preceded by a short — the internet has filled the gap with numerous outlets for short film. And WSFF has joined the fray programming new channels on Babblegum and YouTube. Vimeo also has a good store of curated short film content.
“It’s a shame that we don’t see shorts screened on television all the time,” says Arandiga, “but there are some places to find them. Movieola, features only shorts and Canadian Reflections on CBC screens short films. So there are avenues for this kind of content, you just have to look out for them and have your ear to the ground.”
At WSFF, each 90-minute program screens anywhere from 5 – 20 short films and every program includes at least one documentary, one experimental film, one live-action and one animated short. “And you know what? It’s short,” stresses Arandiga, “so if you don’t particularly like something, it will be over in a few minutes and you can move on to the next thing. You may not like every single film in a given program but I guarantee you will leave having really, really enjoyed at least one of them.”
“The official selection program is the real heart of the festival,” she concludes. “These are the films that could be vying for Oscars next year. Those 12 programs represent the best of the best — we’ve done the work so our audience doesn’t have to.”
WHERE/WHEN: Worldwide Short Film Festival runs June 1 – 6 at the Cumberland Cinema (159 Cumberland Street) and other venues, see website for details.
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