While the rest of the world was obsessing over the Oscars last week, many local film-lovers were more psyched about the latest episode of Crazy8s, a homegrown short film festival that’s now in its fifteenth year.
This year’s was perhaps the craziest yet for organizers, with a total of 154 applicants competing to be one of six teams to score $1,000 and all the cameras and gear they need to shoot a movie — a 50 per cent increase over the number of applications from last year.
Filmmakers are then tasked with making a short film that’s under eight minutes long in just eight days — hence the name, although picking eight finalists instead of six seems like a good idea to shoot for down the road.
The half-dozen new shorts were unveiled last Saturday night at the former Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts and were typically eclectic Crazy8s fare. Films ranged from a musical rom-com about a woman who befriends a bevy of parasitic insects (Bedbugs) to a comedy about a telemarketer unexpectedly reunited with his formerly dead dog (Dial Y for Yesterday), the tale of a lonely embalmer who makes a connection with a corpse (Body Language), a dark drama about a devout, delusional dad and his dying daughter (Sacrifice) and a comedy about the consequences of dumping old mattresses in alleyways (Mattress).
My personal favourite, though, was the campy sci-fi Earthlickers directed by Tony Mirza. (Which, full disclosure, is quite possibly because I spent a couple of days working on set.)
Co-writers Justine Warrington and Alison Araya describe Earthlickers as the “cinematic love child of Barbarella and Ed Wood Jr.” Having never seen Barbarella or any Ed Wood movies (apart from the Ed Wood movie), I’m going to describe it as like an elaborate Kids in the Hall sketch with estrogen. Or maybe Mad Max on MDMA.
Justine and Alison play two of the titular titillating Terra-tasters, a group of seven pink-haired, scantily clad love goddesses from outer space who beam down to Earth in order to bring the power of sexual healing to a loveless post-apocalyptic society.
They've come to rock your world.
They arrive at a small town run by a cold-hearted sheriff (Mackenzie Gray, recently seen on the big screen as a Kryptonian scientist in the blockbuster Man of Steel) who is set to sacrifice a beautiful young woman (Carrie Fleming, no relation) to a Minotaurish fellow named The Bill in order to uphold the social order. Or something like that.
Mackenzie Gray as the Sheriff. True love is his kryptonite. (Photo: Peter Classen)
Will they manage to stir feelings of love in the sheriff’s deputy (Jed Rees) before it’s too late? I won’t spoil the ending though, and hopefully people will be able find out for themselves at upcoming film festivals.
Earthlickers Trailer from Earthlickers on Vimeo.
