What is a short film ?
That is the question we asked film makers, fans and people working with films.

Why ponder the nature of
a short film

Young film maker Susanna Helke does not want to ponder the nature of short films. It is not a productive question, a short film is just that: a short film.

- Its form is not essential but its content. Short stories cannot be read thinking constantly the nature of a short story. That would be like walking and thinking, well, but what is a slipper.

According to Helke the differences in full length films and short films is brought about by practice. Producing a full length film is a costly process and there are certain pressures to please the audience. Short film gives its maker more possibilities for experimenting and for finding new ways of saying things.

Text: Noora Jokinen
Picture: Susanna Pasula
Translation: Liisa Leppänen

Rake Special

For Raimo "Rake" Silius a short film means especially those film clips that were shown as starters in the movies during the sixties. These clips were not longer than 15 minutes maximum. Rake's Finnish favourite from the 90's is Ilppo Pohjola's award-winning P(l)ain Truth, which he thinks is an excellent example of current Finnish film making skill.

This year theTampere Film Festival includes Rake Special: a collection of entertaining Finnish clips from the past 30 years. All clips included last less than five minutes.

- This will make even five minutes seem long.

Text: Elina Venesmäki
Translation: Liisa Leppänen

Ideas can have different lengths

Even a short film can be too long, says writer-director Kaisa Rastimo - The problem in Finland is that TV-networks do not accept films that are shorter than 20 minutes. This is why there is not sufficient funding to produce quality short films. Rastimo thinks that there are many good 35-minute-films, but according to her a 60-minute-film is not a short film anymore.

She feels that sometimes also her own films are too loosely constructed. After two weeks break from work I often look at my films and think I could have shortened it a bit. Ideas have different lengths, and I have learned to estimate how long they would be.

Rastimo considers her short film The Slaves of the System to be her best work. Another one of her favourites is a documentary by Kiti Luostarinen Tell Me What You Saw.Short films work better with more precise, smaller target groups. If a film costs millions to make, it is expected to reach a large audience.

Text: Marjo Laukkanen
Translation: Liisa Leppänen

A short film is like a black hole

Animation film maker Katariina Lillqvist describes short films as poems. Like in poetry, in a short film it is possible to reach a depth that a full length film or a novel cannot sustain. Lillqvist is intrigued by the relationship between a film's length and its depth.

- A short film is like a black hole: the laws of matter are reversed.

The favourite film of Lillqvist is Luis Bunuel's Un chien andalou. Her first encounter with the film left a lasting impression and even after several viewings it remains equally brilliant.

- It is like the first love, she describes.

Short film, a short film

- Well I guess it's a film that lasts some twenty minutes, so it's like a short film, reasons Pasi Pyhtilä, a student at Tampere School of Art and Communication. He thinks that a short film is no different from a full length film in its form or its subjects, but the plot moves faster and the scenes are shorter.

- The style has to be simplified as well, Pasi reflects. At the moment he is working on sounds for full length films. Pasi was not sure about his own participation at the Tampere Film Festival. - I might go if I've got money, he says.

Text: Elina Pirinen
Translation: Liisa Leppänen

Best short films are short

A short film is a statement that eats into the range of thoughts. - For me, a short film is first and foremost a statement, ponders technician Erkki Eteläniemi with his 15 years experience in the handling of projectors at the Tampere Film Festival.

- In my opinion, the best short films are the very short ones that last less than ten minutes. The shorter, the better. Bad short films are commercial entertainment. I have two short film favorites that I think are particularly impressive. I've shown them both, time and time again. The Mallet, a Yugoslavian documentary by Aleksander Ilic, is a story of a black chicken's journey along a conveyor belt. Erkki Kivikoski's Lumberjack is my favorite among the Finnish films; it's a story of a chain saw lumberjack, who loses his job for a harvester.

Text: Jenni Lieto
Translation: Pia Heikkilä

Short films are like poems

A short film is an arena for experimenting new methods of expression, says the Festival Director Pertti Paltila. Many short film directors dream of making longer movies; short films give them an opportunity to practise and experiment.

Short film is still an independent art form. In literature the equivalent would be a poem or a short story.

Paltila names two Yugoslavian films, The Mallet and The Window, as the most impressive short films he has ever seen. Both these films deal with individuality and fighting the main stream.

Text: Miina Supinen
Translation: Pia Heikkilä

The length depends on the temperament of the film maker

- A short film is a combination of voice and sound in a short form, says Elizabeth Marschan, tv-journalist and member of the Festival Board of Directors. According to her, the length of the short films restricts the expression of film makers. There is simply no room for dwelling.

- The point of view has to be constricted, but that does not rule out profundity. The film maker has to find an interesting but concise issue. Although it is possible to deal with wider aspects quite geniously.

Marschan argues that all art forms use both short and long forms:

- You cannot compare a symphony with an étude or a fresco with a small miniature. These are artistical choices that have to do with the temperament of the artist. Someone is a master of short stories, others master great thick tomes.

Text: Mikko Numminen
Translation: Pia Heikkilä

The only thing restricting short films is their length

Kirsi Kinnunen, member of the Tampere Film Festival Board of Directors, defines the concept of short film simply: a short film is short. The average length of short films is 30 to 40 minutes. In Tampere the length is restricted to 30 minutes.

- Sometimes we have to turn down great films that last 35 minutes, and that's regrettable. But usually 30 minutes is enough for a good movie.

Kinnunen finds short films particularly interesting, because their only restriction is their length. The means of expression are more varied than in films of full length. Short films can be documentaries, animations, experimental films or almost anything. Sometimes films that last an hour are called short films too, but their language of expression resembles the one used in full-length movies.

Kinnunen's favorite short films are Roy Andersson's Härlig är jorden and Någonting har hänt.

Text: Miina Supinen
Translation: Pia Heikkilä

The borderline between
short and long movies is fuzzy

Untamo Eerola directs documentaries for the Finnish Broadcasting Company. For him the concept of 'short film' is relative, because Aki Kaurismäki 's Ariel is of the same length as many of the documentaries he directs, and still it is not a short film.

Usually Eerola classifies films that last an hour or less as short films. But then he adds that the borderline between short and long films is fuzzy.

- Unfortunately television cannot broadcast short films that last less than 30 minutes, unless a series is made out of them, says Eerola.

Text: Paula Vilen
Translation: Pia Heikkilä