Does Size Really Matter?

In thirteen days, Tokyo gears up for it`s eleventh annual Short Shorts Film Festival (June 4th-14th) drawing in an expected 200,000 people. And with ninety-nine titles in the competition being shown in four different categories, there promises to be a film to please any film aficionado. One of the more promising films this year, is Buddies a comedy from the International Competition about a homeless man and his sock puppet. Or the drama piece Breath from the Asia International Competition by director Eui-Kyun Kim. But really? What kind of drama can unfold in six minutes and fifty seven seconds? That`s the beauty of the film festival. It`ll only be the length of a movie trailer for you to find out. Some films to look out for from the STOP! Global Warming Competition are the Japanese Thriller 28, or the incredibly short comedy (1:07 one minute seven seconds) film First Step, or the even shorter Animation film Global Warming (0:30 seconds) from the U.S. This year also sees the Music Short Competition with cinematic films interlaced with music. Surprisingly, most of these quasi-music videos are longer than some of the films. Ranging from tragic love stories to the drama piece Haruka that`s about "gratitude for one`s parents love and determination to love one`s family." With so many movies to watch and so little time off work, I have to wonder if size really does matter?