Jason goes to SFIAAFF--Thursday, March 17

Which is St. Patrick's day. That's right, while everyone else is getting drunk on green beer, my tradition is watching Asian movies. That's just how I roll (not my fault the Irish Film Festival isn't schedules for St. Patrick's Day).

It's also the last night in San Francisco, but I'll get an extra fest fix in San Jose. As it is, I skipped the closing night gala (I'll see the film SURROGATE VALENTINE in San Jose, and didn't want to shell out the money for the party). Instead I just saw one program of shorts: Futurestates. This is a series produced by ITVS. SFIAAFF played a sampling of their first season last year, which I loved. And this program is a sampling of their second season. Awesome shorts using ideas of the near future to illuminate issues of the present.

BEHOLDER: In the future, Real Americans will live in a domed community called Red Estates, where babies are genetically engineered, homosexuality is engineered out, and everyone speaks of the horrors of 'The Coast.' A politician named Bobby Aryana and his wife have a little problem.
EXPOSURE: In the future, the government will deploy squads of 'contagions'--people infected with a benign form of a deadly virus--to infect the general population into health. There will be activists who believe this is a bad idea and the virus will mutate.
THAT WHICH ONCE WAS: In the future, there will be several 'Environmental Refugees,' like Vicente, a little boy who survived a tsunami in Bangladesh. He will apprentice with an ice sculptor, a man whose work by it's very nature melts away. So the only things of value are memories.
DIGITAL ANTIQUITIES: In the future, you'll have to go to an antique shop to read a data CD. Actually, that's pretty close to the present.
THE SPRING OF SORROW: In the future, there will be very little water. One little girl will scavenge water to save her sister.
WORKER DRONE: In the future...this movie will play. But this time I was definitely awake, I paid attention, and I swear it didn't.

Total Running Time: 80 minutes
My Total Minutes: 228,996