beyond borders : in the kingdom of cinematic freedom . Could the history of cinema have gone differently ?
People described by the narrator of Robert Musil ’ s novel as gifted with the “ sense of possibility ”, providing one with the “ ability to factor in everything that might potentially happen ” and “ not favoring something that is over something that is not ”, would surely provide an affirmative answer . Throughout the first twenty years of the cinema ’ s existence , it was dominated by short forms , presented in sets of cinematic variety that filled the programs of first cinemas designed to fascinate and amaze the audience . It is the short film format that the first generation of American producers was specializing in . Yet , they have lost to their slightly younger rivals – the creators of Hollywood , who have offered the audience a different type of entertainment : a full-length feature film . In a system based on cinema distribution the longer form triumphed over the shorter , perhaps the viewers wanted the film to last at least as long as they have spent on getting to the screening ?
Eventually , the cinema has faced the standardization so strong that we consider it completely natural . With few exceptions , regular feature films last from 90 to 120 , sometimes 150 minutes . Let ’ s imagine entering the bookstore and being suddenly hit by homogeneity of the books ’ thickness – they all have from 200 to 300 pages . What ’ s more , upon closer examination it turns out that almost all of these books are novels . In our hypothetical bookstore , there is nothing thinner or thicker , there is also nothing besides novels : no poetry , short stories or essays . The imaginary bookstore would have most certainly seemed odd to us . Meanwhile the current film distribution resembles exactly such “ bookstore ”, where one can rarely find something different than a full-length feature film or a longer documentary . There is no “ poetry ”, “ essay ” or “ short story ”. What is more , we do not even put much thought into nature of this selectivity .
Generally , massive territories of short film cinema remain beyond our consciousness : feature , documentary , animation and experimental . They appear on television less and less . It is difficult for them to break through the Internet ’ s abundance of audiovisual forms . Short film festivals such as Short Waves Festival in Poznań , Cinemaforum in Warsaw or Żubroffka in Białystok have become a unique occasion to come in contact with this cinematic form .
The Short Waves Festival repertoire is , as usual , very rich and gives the opportunity to taste many different short film forms . This year , Poznań Industry Weekend project will allow us to expand our understanding of short storytelling . Better understanding of the form
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