I’ve just seen the 5 finalists in the Berlinale short film festival from the category known as the Talent Campus. These were all very well produced shorts. Big budgets and big crews. And for the most part they were interesting, artistic, and stunning – both in sound and imagery. I’ll go into more detail about the good ones in another post, but at this point I’ll focus on the stinker: ‘The Astronaut on the Roof’ by Sergi Portabella. Though the audience at the Berlinale Sunday showing were pleased with this film (perhaps it was because they are inexperienced student film-makers), it bored me to tears. This was a trite, boring, film-student project at it’s worst – and this a film that was well funded. The concept borrowed from ‘Throw Momma From the Train’, ‘Adaptation’ (and other films about writing a script) in the cheapest and most unoriginal way possible. The non-stop voice-over was enough to make the true film lovers in the audience beg for razor blades to end their misery. The only positive point was that a jury of competent judges, not a audience of young film-makers, voted for another interesting film to take top honors. But as an artist and a lover of great cinema (including short films) I was surprised this even made the top 5 list. This film was truly a trip down ‘freshman year at film-school’ avenue – an uncreative, unoriginal, immature, self-indulgent attempt at making a short film. But as I left the theater there was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The audience had seen 4 examples of very classy, funny, interesting shorts, yet they clapped loudest for this piece of fish wrap. It is the same feeling I have when people call sappy music ‘great’, sentimental art ‘brilliant’, and bad mime performers ‘fasinating’. These views of such cheap attempts at art are not based in snobbery, but in an understanding of the passion, thoughtfulness, and skill that go into creating good work. As someone who understands what it means to work hard for something of integrity and class, I truly felt for the 4 very good film-makers this evening. The loudest applause went to a piece of ‘home-movie’ tripe they could have done in an afternoon. The only response I have to them and to you is – always attempt to do what you know to be good work. It may be tempting to short-cut your short-film and create a cheap crowd-pleaser, but the crowds will leave and you will have paid for the tripe with the compromise of your creative integrity. Inspire others to good things through your best attempts. An audience is often like fickle children in a playground – one minute wanting a slap-happy dance number, the next wanting a sentimental love song. Whether comedy, tragedy, sound, or imagery, when the audience goes home we are left with the choices we made and the work we accomplished. Do the work that challenges you to grow. Do the work you can be proud of in years to come.

When I speak to creative people I usually say create something. The creators of ‘Astronaut’ did that. The next step, of course, is to improve on the first thing you threw out there. Here’s hoping Mr. Portabella doesn’t get stuck on whatever uncreative planet this film was from.

Photo by SpreePIX – Berlin