Glitch Fest: Montreal's Short Film Fest

Glitch Fest Montreals Short Film Fest
"I used to work in marketing," says Jean-Renaud Gauthier, director of the computer-animated short L'Astro-Po�r. This little gem opened to a packed room on Saturday and promptly rocked the house. He adds wryly: "I had access to a rendering farm and Maya 3D software. It occurred to me that I should use the opportunity and find the guts to bring to reality some of those dreams of mine."

The annual Glitch Fest in Montreal is made of such moments and the 2004 edition bears witness to unprecedented strength in those dreams, at a time when audiences are most receptive to the fresh, the new, the original. Indeed, the fifth edition of this multicultural festival of video shorts, the only one in the world with such a far-reaching agenda, crammed 99 films into three evenings, opening with the over-the-top dark humour of Assassinage , a film told almost completely through the crosshairs of a brutally eager sniper, and closing with the heart-stopping pastels of Bid 'em In, an animated tour-de-force of composition and rhythm on a very poignant theme.

The programming, culled from the more than 500 entries received, offered a true window on the comradeship of filmmakers worldwide, on their universal desire to share their hopes and fears