The TSFF takes place on the 4th of July at The Soap Factory near Dinkytown, Minneapolis where I've been living this summer. I was invited to spend the holiday with some people who were going, so naturally I tagged along. Holy crap was it a good time. All I want to do now is make ten second films all day long. It was so worth the back pain caused by sitting on a plant.
The show's format was good. There was a host, this big guy in a white suit and American flag top-hat. He was funny, receptive to the crowd, etc. Good at his job. They'd apparently been taking submissions for a long time (maybe all year?), and they'd picked the best 100 to show. These were divided into 10 categories, each shown consecutively along with an intro video. They had names like "Mindless Violence", "Arthouse", "Documentary", and "Dance Off". Then between the sets of 10 there were judges who chose a winner. The winner got a silly trophy and lots of drunken applause. The whole thing took about an hour and a half, which was a great length.
The best moment of the night needs some setup. After the Documentary category, the crowd favorite was far and away this appropriately named film called Sticks. Everyone was chanting "Sticks Sticks Sticks!" until the judges finally gave in and agreed to give it the prize. Unfortunately, no one showed up to take credit. People got upset, there was booing, etc. It was bad. So they had to give it to the second place winner instead.
Later in the night, another winner has just been announced, and again it's looking like a no-show. Everyone's getting bored looking around, and finally this guy comes in like off the street and walks up on stage. They try to hand him the trophy, but he waves them off. There's some confusion, and this guy finally ends up with the microphone and says to the crowd "Hey, I'm the guy who made Sticks." Cheers erupt, along with demands to give him this category's trophy. So they did. Awesome.
I noticed after the Documentary category that the best films tended to be documentary in nature, even if they didn't fall into that category explicitly. I think capturing the perfect 10 second moment on your phone's camera just has more oomph to it than the other reigning formula of "one ten second joke". Not that those weren't hilarious, mind you.
My favorite film wasn't either of those, though. I wish I could find the video online, but alas, a description shall have to suffice. It was called Puree, and it featured a bleak, white room containing only a blender full of water and goldfish. A hand slowly moved onto the screen, reaching for the power button on the blender and getting closer... closer... CLOSER... and then a smash cut to black. So perfect.
Looking around online, it looks like none of this year's films are online. In fact, very few of them seem to make it up unless they're put there by their creators. Still, here's one of my favorites:
You can see their whole youtube channel here.
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