Real People | Real Stories

A couple of years ago I made Amy a gift of a subscription to the remarkable Journal of Short Film. This is something pretty nifty: a DVD magazine, or a film festival for your mailbox. 

Sign up for the exceedingly reasonable subscription, and four times a year, a very nicely produced DVD volume of short films will wing its way to your TV set’s mailbox. 

In the two and a half years we’ve subscribed, the quality of the films has been consistently solid, ranging from perfectly-acceptable-worthwhile to utterly transcendent.

There is a range of genres and styles represented. As with any collection curated by other people (for other people), some of it resonates more with us than others, of course. But precisely in the variety is the interest. I’d get bored if it were just stellar documentary short after stellar documentary short. 

Abstract art films that strain conventional definitions of filmmaking, and flip books and straight up narrative stories and fables and Grand Cinema writ small all occupy the menu on these things. Apart from YouTube, this has got to be the best value in film enthusiast world.

I just re-upped Amy’s subscription. When we popped the latest issues/DVD in the player, she said, “Best. Gift. Ever*.”

(*And if you know her, you know Amy doesn’t take her superlatives lightly. Heh.)