The Slamdance Film Festival attempts to bridge the gap between home movie enthusiasts and professional film makers. While many independent film festivals today are filled with million dollar plus features and have become a place to see and be seen, Slamdance is still about struggling filmmakers and their product. Slamdance films have lower budgets, but they are also grittier and more experimental. Some interesting films are show each year, and though most of them never get a wide distribution deal, that doesn't mean they aren't worth watching.

For the seventh year in a row, Slamdance has released a DVD of shorts that screened during the festival. This year's compilation is entitled Where the Wilderness Meets the Garden, and has a nice mix of quality short films.

The films included in this collection are:

Dambo (6 min.): A stop-motion animated piece using dolls and action figures. While there isn't a lot of plot, a girl gets up and walks around town, the environment is very interesting looking. The film does have several flaws that many stop-motion films have, a jerkiness even when there's no action and awkward looking movement, they did a good job.

Cushion (14 min.): A guy has been chatting on the internet with a woman for six months. They have a lot in common and they've even had phone sex. When they meet and go over to her place however, things aren't as nice as he thought they'd be. A funny study in being awkward, this is was a good film. The situation that the guy finds himself in is just horrible enough to make him loose interest in sex, while not being so bad that it's unrealistic. Though the ending wasn't strong, this was an enjoyable movie.

The Keep (5 min.) In the future where water is scarce, a woman breaks a local taboo and goes into a forbidden area only to discover a lake. There were reasons why this place was off limits however.

La Cabra (15 min.): A young Hispanic boy is impressed by the gang members who hang out near the playground where his sister plays. Gathering up his courage, he goes over and talks to them. They have money, women and power, and he can have that all too, if he'll just do them a little favor. I thought this film gave an accurate view of the pressures, many of them internal, that inner city youths face at a young age, while not being preachy.

Sunday in August (Sonntag im August) (15 min.): A couple, who have fallen out of love long ago, are sailing on a lake at the end of the summer. The petty unkindness that they show each other escalates to a predictable conclusion. This was a weaker film, though the underwater photography was good, there weren't any surprises in this story.

Egg (8 min): This experimental film mixes live action with stop-motion animation segments. An animated pirate hunts a yolk inside an egg, while a trio of live action chicken-people are force feed various foods, including the egg with the pirate.

Worms (6 min.): a mocumentary about the struggles and hardships of a worm farmer in the midwest. This was amusing, and running only six minutes it didn't overstay its welcome. The creators had the right tone and style for a documentary which added a lot to the humor, and the couple they found to play the farmer and his wife were prefect. A fun little film.

Foxy & the Weight of the World (8 min.): A miserable thug of a man has eaten some poison and lays dying on his floor. With his last energy, he calls his dog, Foxy, to him, and gives the pooch some advice for surviving without his master. This was the only short I really didn't like. Thought the title and set-up was humorous, the film itself was not. The advice that he gives the dog wasn't noble or wise, and the whole film seemed pointless. Foxy's owner had a very bitter outlook on life, which one would expect from a person described as a thug and hoodlum.

The Guilt Trip, or the Vaticans Take a Holiday (14 min): In a run down and abandoned church, the icons that are left Another stop-motion piece, this film looks at the This was the most impressive looking stop-motion film on this disc, as well as the most ambitous.

Neighbors (6 min): A man catches his neighbor on tape stealing his newspaper day after day. He confronts him on, again on video, and tries to make the neighbor admit that he's a thief. A comical short that starts off very well, but doesn't really have a payoff at the end. Still worth watching, even if just to live vicariously through the main character.

Twitch (9 min.): A young lady with a crippled mother worries that her mother's condition might be contagious or hereditary. She tries to discuss her fears with her boyfriend, but he's just interested in having sex. A powerful film, it relies on the actor's abilities to convey their emotions through their actions rather than dialog. Happily the actors were all up to the task. Emma Adele Galvin plays the lead, and she does a tremendous job, making viewers see how trapped her character feels without ever stating it. Easily the best film on the disc.

Dream Catcher (9 min.): The final film on this disc is an avant-garde film from Bulgaria. A film without dialog, it shows a man (in the future? on another planet?) who leaves a woman to go to explore. People who enjoy plotless experimental films will like this one, as I did.

These films all have stereo soundtracks, and though they are amateur productions, the overall audio quality was good. There were some instances of light distortion and a dropout or two, but these were the exceptions rather than the rule. While none of the audio tracks were very dynamic, they did a good job of supporting the visuals. The films that aren't in English have burnt in subtitles

Video:

These movies were filmed with different aspect ratios and they are all presented as they were intended to be shown. Unfortunately the widescreen movies are not anamorphically enhanced. The image quality varied from film to film but was generally good. Some shorts had a fair amount of grain and light aliasing was a problem also. Sunday in August had some edge enhancement that didn't help the image too. Besides that this disc had average looking transfers.

Extras:

The only extra is a minute and a half long commercial for a company that will digitize films.

Final Thoughts:

As with any collection of short films, this was a mixed bag. While most only one or two of the films were bad, there weren't many great ones either. Twitch was the best film of this DVD, and it is worth checking out for that movie along. The rest are worth watching and entertaining in their own right, but none of them are very memorable. This would make an excellent rental.