Down to the minute

The Montreal 60 Second Film Festival presents a selection of one-minute films by lively locals

M60 SNAPSHOTS:
Road Birling, Ostie de Câlisse de Tabarnac!,
The Street, Tiger Quest

by MALCOLM FRASER

In a city replete with film festivals, you might be inclined to think that every possible kind of cinematic gathering has been attempted. But the Montreal 60 Second Film Festival, or M60 for short, flips the usual script with its concept—a strict one-minute length for films, and a refreshingly open submission process—as well as the equally open attitude of its programmers.

“The five organizers are a group of friends,” recounts enthusiastic spokesperson Sean Michaels of the fest’s genesis. “On the night of the eclipse in February, we went up Mount Royal to scope it out, then we went down to the bar at Sala. We had all just had a funny communal experience, being spectators for the same event. One of us landed on the idea of shooting a 60-second film. That very quickly snowballed into the idea of a festival. It’s the kind of thing you come up with staring into your cups.

“We began to mutter about it to our peers,” he continues, “and it was received with the same glee that came to us with the idea.” This June, the organizers threw a launch event, inviting prospective filmmakers to sign up. Uniquely, M60 had no evaluation process or submission fee—participation was on a first come, first served basis.

“We tried to come up with a methodology that put as few obstacles in front of people as possible—there was nothing that filmmakers needed to do except make a film,” explains Michaels. “None of us had made movies before, and we were trying to create something that was open to people like us, mixed in with pros who have made films. By having this wide variety of experience and background, we thought we’d get different kinds of voices.”

Indeed, on top of the efforts of ambitious amateurs, the fest has some notable celebrity content, with contributions from Oscar-winning animator John Weldon (of old-school NFB cartoon The Log Driver’s Waltz), director Robert Ditchburn (assistant director of 300 and The Fountain), and local musical matriarch Anna McGarrigle. Michaels promises that the diverse results include “ridiculous comedies, fantasy action, a macabre, eerie puppet film, a couple of nature documentaries, and one really creepy horror film.”

The fest wasn’t an easy sell to some local programmers. “We originally spoke to Cinéma du Parc,” Michaels recalls. “The very wise programmer there thought we were lunatics. He couldn’t see why anyone would pay to see movies that might be crappy. But even if there’s a really terrible movie, it’s only one minute long—in almost as much time as it takes you to yawn, this unbearable film is over. We have everything from masterpieces to absolute incompetence, and everything in between.” Besides, he points out, “55 seconds of absolute rubbish is actually really fun to watch.”

“The thing that makes this festival special is its openness and its dilettantism,” Michaels declares. “We have just shy of 80 films, and that’s 80 separate ideas and 80 attempts to say something. The community running wild with people trying to make movies—that was as much the goal as the final product.”

M60 SCREENS WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24
AND THURSDAY, SEPT. 25 AT
LA SALA ROSSA (4848 ST-LAURENT),
8:30 P.M., $7.
FOR MORE INFO, SEE M60.CA