SB: How to Fall in Love in a Pandemic is about two people who meet-a woman goes to visit a man in Ireland-and they have lockdown. What are your thoughts about the COVID-themed shorts this year? The narrative drama, Leylak, and the animated short, There are Bunnies on Fire in the Forest. MJ: Two films I saw that specifically referenced COVID. We got a wacky comedy program, “Straight Up with a Twist.” Our programs reflect the hopeful optimism. This year, we leaned away from devastating we’re devastated enough. I’m not saying “lighter” as in “funny ha-ha,” I’m saying “lighter” as in it can be a really strong drama but there is a note of hope at the end. But there has to be a presence because that is the zeitgeist, so we went lighter, intentionally.
It was impossible to avoid because there were so many films about COVID, but we had to think about them in a way to not have them overwhelm the selections.
BADAL FILM MOVIE
They don’t want to see a movie about COVID. New York went into lockdown first, and it was horrible here. Programming on the phone, or on zoom, or not having in-depth discussions, made us feel-as we were watching all these films -there were way too many stories about COVID. Ben and I didn’t sit face to face until February or March. We didn’t have meetings with our associate programmers. That’s why we called it “Let’s Fly Away.” As we are watching, this year, in particular, was very challenging because it was very lonely. When we put together the international program, we were thinking about spanning the globe that everyone was missing travelling. We saw other films that made us think about a program specifically about music and dance and art-that was something the audience was missing. For example, the “Art and Soul” program (the music documentary shorts) was anchored by the short, Blondie: Vivir En La Habana. We really considered what people were missing, and that became the basis for the programs.
Sharon Badal: We spent a lot of time thinking about the festival this year, in particular about our audience and the fact that we were going to screen in person. MovieJawn: What observations do you have about this year’s crop of shorts? Shorts curator Sharon Badal, who programs with her colleague, Ben Thompson, chatted with MovieJawn about this year’s short film selections. This year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which just ended, received more than 6,000 short film entries that were whittled down to 46 selections from 20 countries.
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