MAPLE SHORTS

27.3. and 3.4. 2013

Have you ever tasted maple syrup? Did you like it? How about trying maple/Canadian short films? At the end of March we will be serving a double portion. Our program chef took great pains to put together this special menu. We wish you bon appetite and we can't wait to see you in your favorite cinema.

The Canadian Shorts night is held under auspices of the Canadian Embassy in Prague.

BROKEN HEART SYNDROME (CANADA)

Director: Dusty Mancinelli | Producers: Dusty Mancinelli, Harry Cherniak, Brent S. Martin
Star: Jim Annan, Andrew Church, SamBea Cochrane

Year: 2012 | Length: 16 min | Live action

After a traumatic break up, Russ Kaufman is diagnosed with a rare disease known as Broken Heart Syndrome (BHS) and desperately tries to find a cure that will mend his broken heart before it’s too late.

REQUIEM FOR ROMANCE (CANADA)

Director: Jonathan Ng | Producer: Jonathan Ng

Year: 2012 | Length: 7 min | Animated film

A modern-day couple’s secret love affair comes to a bittersweet end during an evening phone call. Cell phone static creates distance between them as they anguish over details of their relationship. But the visuals of the film reveal something entirely different: the epic re-imagining of their relationship set in feudal China, where family influence, cultural pressures and their lust for adventure makes more sense. In this dream-like short film, love goes to war over art.

ASIAN GANGS (CANADA)

Directors: Lewis Bennett, Calum MacLeod | Producers: Calum MacLeod, Lewis Bennett, Benjamin Taft

Year: 2012 | Length: 10 min | Live action

Lewis Bennett, a chubby and extremely Caucasian documentarian, unearths a disquieting secret from his past and tries to determine if he is, in fact, a member of an Asian gang.

CORVUS (CANADA)

Director: Darcy Van Poelgeest | Producers: Darcy Van Poelgeest, Mike Gill (LIS Entertainment)
Star: Sara Canning, Matthew MacCaull, James O'Sullivan

Year: 2012 | Length: 10 min | Live action

A weary yet extraordinary police detective pieces together a young woman's murder. The crime reveals itself in a series of moments that allow the detective to see past the facts, and into the story with a strange sense of familiarity.

A GIRL NAMED ELASTIKA (CANADA)

Director: Blanchet Guillaume | Producer: Blanchet Guillaume (Travelling)
Star: Léa Rondot, Mike Paterson

Year: 2012 | Length: 4 min | Animated film

Elastika is a little girl made of elastics. Her journey is one of a kind, as she travels in a land of cork, jumping from buildings roofs, crossing an ocean or traveling to space holding on to a firework rocket. Her adventure, shot in stopmotion, required over 10 000 pictures.

THE WORST DAY EVER (CANADA)

Director: Sophie Jarvis | Producer: Sophie Jarvis
Star: Helen Camisa, Jakob Davies, Rick Harkness

Year: 2012 | Length: 12 min | Live action

A little boy has an increasingly awful day in an unfair and cruel world.

POP LE CHAVALE (CANADA)

Director: Kristof Brandl | Producer: Kristof Brandl

Year: 2012 | Length: 5 min | Experimental film

Film dreamlike atmosphere, Pop Le Cheval is a poetic look at a youth barely out of Montreal adolescence.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR DAY JOB (CANADA)

Director: Sean Frewer | Producer: Lea Marin
Star: Georgina Reilly, David Reale, Jeffrey R. Smith

Year: 2012 | Length: 9 min | Live action

Adapted from the acclaimed short story, HOW TO KEEP YOUR DAY JOB by Rebecca Rosenblum, this rhythmic short film expresses the fullness of the nine-to-five skyscraper grind life experience, or perhaps the lack thereof. Filled with insight into humanity and comedic irony about our personal and professional lives, the story follows a young woman (Georgina Reilly) through the concrete jungle, into her office and bedroom.

LITTLE MISS JIHAD (CANADA)

Directors: Stephanie Law, Jessica Wu | Producers: Jessica Wu, Stephanie Law
Star: Jasmine Chan, Davis Ryan, Melanie Leon, Rahim Hajee

Year: 2012 | Length: 13 min | Live action

When 10-year-old, Afghani-American, Sally Khan, discovers that the father she never knew disappeared on September 11, 2001, she becomes convinced that he is a terrorist. Now if she could only figure out what that means!

SLEEPY STORIES (CANADA)

Director: Andrew Rowe | Producer: Laura Hope
Star: Christina Gooding, Andrew Rowe, Michael Rowe

Year: 2012 | Length: 12 min | Live action

In a desperate attempt to cure his insomnia, David contacts Sleepy Stories, a service whose employees are so incredibly boring they can talk to you to sleep in minutes – or your money back.

Screening in original language with Czech and English subtitles. 98 min.