Perhaps the reason that Ilson and many others want to preserve the purity of the form is that short films can have an impact in a way that features can’t. A short film can provide a ten minute window on another world that can shock, arouse, disgust, enrage or bring about tears of laughter. And with the collection of shorts in Cinema 16: World Short Films, there is plenty of all of the above.

With an impressive roll-call of directors (Guillermo del Toro, Jane Campion and Guy Maddin, to name but three) providing both films and—in most cases—commentaries to go with them, this compilation will please both filmmakers and serious enthusiasts alike.

Producer Luke Morris explains the selection process; “Rather than have a collection of films unified by theme, I wanted to have a collection unified by quality.” The result of his efforts is a challenging but ultimately very rewarding collection of films. It is an odd experience to watch the student films of Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron (in both cases displaying some of the themes and stylistic quirks that would later become hallmarks of their work) contrasted with the likes of Andrea Arnold’s Oscar®-winning WASP, or Guy Maddin’s surreal MY DAD IS 100 YEARS OLD with mock safety-video slasher FORKLIFT DRIVER KLAUS, by Stefan Prehn and Jorg Wagner.

The whole spectrum of the human condition seems to have been examined in this collection, from the social injustice of Ousmane Sembene’s BOROM SARET to the black humour of Sylvain Chomet’s THE OLD LADY AND THE PIGEONS. Animation sits side by side with black and white classic cinema,