RESFEST TORONTO November 30-December 3 Rating: NNN Rating: NNN
Cruising through the Resfest lineup can feel like club-hopping across continents. The films and videos serve up quick bursts of Zagreb, Rio or Barcelona, and the fest emphasizes zippy shorts driven by clever animation or hip music.
This is year 10, so the organizers have perfected the formula. They bring us Sam Arthur’s This Is Me (screening in Shorts Two: Out Of The Box), a sharp, three-minute comedy about chance disaster falling from the sky, and Chris Hopewell’s There, There, an eerie Radiohead video, part of a whole program of vids from the much-loved library rockers.
That stuff is fun, but Food Fight (in Shorts One: State Of The Art) is brilliant. Director Stefan Nadelman speeds through a history of wars, with countries represented by their fast food. Burgers, sausages, sushi and kebabs battle it out for world supremacy. Nadelman films this inspired concept in dazzling stop-motion animation, making Pearl Harbor into a bracing gag and offering a jaw-dropping take on 9/11.
Resfest’s iPod-sized insights can often feel fleeting, but Food Fight stays with you. (Theatre D at the Royal Theatre)
