A category inviting of an extremely broad range of themes, the Lust For Life program is a celebration of the overall joie de vivre people experience every day.
The program starts on an unfortunately ponderous note, with Natalie Robison and Servane Phillips' "Inscape." The filmmakers dote much too long on simply filming some admittedly stunning human contortions with pretty lighting and setting the shots to an achingly sincere opera soundtrack.
Two animated shorts follow, with Daniel Lundquist's "Boris" being an especially fun tale about a relentless drummer, which is told in rapidly shifting and charmingly sloppy pen animation. "Made Up" is a startling piece of transformation written and performed solely by Montreal-based artist Owen Eric Wood. Over the course of five minutes, Wood undertakes a subversion of homosexual stereotypes, changing his voice, hair, clothes and makeup to demonstrate the spectrum of "gayness" and how it is accepted.
Cute, life-affirming stories of love are also a welcome presence in the program. "Post-It Love" follows two shy young office works performing a sweet dance of seduction using cleverly arranged artistry with the titular memos, resulting in a wordless romance sure to resonate with anyone who has ever written a ridiculous mash note.
"Paul Rondin is... Paul Rondin" yields genuine hilarity from the one-note story of a cinematic voiceover actor searching for love while unable to break from his "Coming soon to a theatre near you..." persona. Like all the characters featured in the program there's yearning for something more in life in Paul Rondin, even if he can't figure out exactly what to do about it.
Capping off the selections is "Love You More," a British high school punk rock romance set to one of the best songs to emerge from late '70s English punk scene. No small feat, and neither are these films.
The program starts on an unfortunately ponderous note, with Natalie Robison and Servane Phillips' "Inscape." The filmmakers dote much too long on simply filming some admittedly stunning human contortions with pretty lighting and setting the shots to an achingly sincere opera soundtrack.
Two animated shorts follow, with Daniel Lundquist's "Boris" being an especially fun tale about a relentless drummer, which is told in rapidly shifting and charmingly sloppy pen animation. "Made Up" is a startling piece of transformation written and performed solely by Montreal-based artist Owen Eric Wood. Over the course of five minutes, Wood undertakes a subversion of homosexual stereotypes, changing his voice, hair, clothes and makeup to demonstrate the spectrum of "gayness" and how it is accepted.
Cute, life-affirming stories of love are also a welcome presence in the program. "Post-It Love" follows two shy young office works performing a sweet dance of seduction using cleverly arranged artistry with the titular memos, resulting in a wordless romance sure to resonate with anyone who has ever written a ridiculous mash note.
"Paul Rondin is... Paul Rondin" yields genuine hilarity from the one-note story of a cinematic voiceover actor searching for love while unable to break from his "Coming soon to a theatre near you..." persona. Like all the characters featured in the program there's yearning for something more in life in Paul Rondin, even if he can't figure out exactly what to do about it.
Capping off the selections is "Love You More," a British high school punk rock romance set to one of the best songs to emerge from late '70s English punk scene. No small feat, and neither are these films.