Short Films Block 5 w/Filmmaker Q&A
Sunday is our Shorts Extravaganza! If you love the short films, don't miss today's show! We are stuffed to the gills with weird, uncanny, cosmic horror, and comedic shorts! These range from direct adaptations of stories by Lovecraft and his contemporaries to original stories that couldn’t exist without the influence of cosmic horror. Q&A with attending filmmakers follows.
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The Book in the House
A centuries-old forest, an archaic waterfall that could be anywhere and a mature man who, to escape the noise of civilization, look for a space for reflection in inaccessible places. In a house of apparently abandoned stone awaits him - as if he had an appointment - a homo selvaticus which, as readers of the original story recall (The Picture in the House, H. P. Lovecraft, 1920), will mark the most radical emotional turn of his life.
[excerpt from an article in il fatto quotidiano, translated from the original Italian]
This film was begun 35 years ago. In the spring of 1985, after having printed a working copy destined for editing, the production was interrupted and the material shot was lost. It was rediscovered in 2010 and with the help of some friends, a digital copy was made. In 2020, more scenes were shot and the film was finished.
Franco Leo is the extraordinary protagonist of the story, but time - 35 years of it - has become his stunt double, has carved out his face and entered the plot by moving the original script to another level.
The film is a journey through time also for Gianni Di Nino and Danilo Marabotto who wrote the screenplay, direction and photography: with this short they return for a moment to the cinema after a life spent on television. In fact, both began as cinematographers of the Rai headquarters in the Aosta Valley and both shot the first images of the film 35 years ago.
![](https://hplfilmfestival.com/sites/default/files/styles/film_screenshot/adaptive-image/public/films/Transfer_Jonas%20Govaerts_screen1_47.jpg?itok=TDZgUO86)
Transfer
To his great surprise, Elias Duyster, a serial killer sentenced to life, is visited by his estranged daughter Fia. Elias hopes for reconciliation, but all Fia wants from him is a signature on a medical certificate. Then their conversation takes a sinister turn.
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The Altruist
Two characters are forced to navigate a stark and brutal calculus in hunger, sex and death when routine facility maintenance veers wildly towards conflict and the instinct for self-preservation.