American Short Shorts Film Festival 2000

Keiko ibi	Michael Goetz	Greg Pak	Mark Osborne	Roy Unger
Jim Fleigner	Jochen Schliessler	Charlie Call	Erisabeth Lohen	Grant Barbeito
Keith Milton	Christine Swanson	Mitchel Rose	Chris Harwood	Bruce Laffey
Michael Cargile	Joan Raspo

Elisabeth Lochen has had a very unique career. After earning a Ph.D. in psychology, she jumped into the music industry. Then she developed DTS (digital sound system), an innovative film sound system. "My parents raised me with their policy that people should study hard and get a good job. I studied psychology and got a job in the psychology field in order to meet their expectations. But the truth was that I've wanted to make movies since I was 7. However, once I quit psychology, I didn't know what to do. So, I started to work at a recording studio because I wanted to work at least close to the film industry. I liked music anyway, and in the end, the decision that I made was the right one. I would never go back to psychology again," she laughed.
Elisabeth's film RED RIBBON takes place in Germany during World War II. Elisabeth herself is French and was, of course, not raised during the war, so she created the atmosphere of those days from her imagination. She found costumes for the film by going to antique shops in LA everyday. Although RED RIBBON is very serious and solemn, Elisabeth's dream is to make an action movie, like THE ROCK. "I think that what's great about film is that it can show us a world that is totally different from our everyday life. Those are the kind of movies that I want to make."

RUBEN, a film without a single word of dialogue, truly demonstrates the power of short film. Above all else, the cat's acting was absolutely astonishing. How on earth did Grant shoot this scene? "Actually, we used two male cats, a father and son, to play the one cat because cats get really tired from the heat from the lights during filming. I was so lucky to find two cats that looked so much alike." Grant first wrote the script for RUBEN as a feature film, but he made a short instead. He is going to make a sequel to RUBEN titled LOSING YOUR HEAD. He explained how he decides how long his films should be. "My priority is the idea. I don't determine the length of the film when I start making it. When I told a friend of mine about my idea for this film, he said that it should be 30 seconds. But I wanted to put more ideas into this work.." The film is a comedy, but the ending is a bit cruel for cat lovers. "I just wanted to portray a world of fantasy. I didn't mean that I hate cats," laughed Grant.

"The concept of this film," explained Keith, "was based on a situation where a person seems to be trying to help someone, but in reality he has the complete opposite intention." There's a very impressive roof-top tap dancing scene in this film. Keith shot the scene in LA last August. "The most costly thing in this scene was the drinking water," he explained. "We had to shoot in the 100°heat everyday, and the dancers got so exhausted. After four days of shooting, the dancers finally insisted that they couldn't dance any longer, but to be honest, I wanted to shoot more." Keith currently works at Virgin Records in LA as a music video producer. He took advantage of his position to get an excellent cameraman to film TWINKLE TOES. He produced this film by making the best use of his current opportunities.

Christine Swanson was in fact in Japan 10 years ago as an exchange student at Nanzan University. She enjoys Japanese films such as Director Suo's "Shall We Dance," Juzo Itami's "Tampopo" and Akira Kurosawa's "Madadayo." Whereas action/adventure films are very popular in America, Christine thinks that the Japanese are more fond of romantic stories. She also watches Japanese television dramas in the U.S quite often. "I even saw Tetsuya Bessho's show 'Majo no Joken'" said Christine. The film that she is presenting at the festival, "Two Seasons," is a love story about a man and a woman who were "just" friends for a long time. "Although the story is fiction, I realized that it happens to a lot of people," she says. "I met my husband that way, and I know another couple just like the pair in the film. I think many people can relate to the story." Christine has already started her next project, which is about an African-American man who is trying to make his career as a singer in Japan. "To tell the truth, I've always wanted to come to Japan during the cherry blossom season to shoot beautiful scenery, but I couldn't do it for this film because of the budget problem. I will make it happen someday!"

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