Interview Shorts That Are Not Pants programmer James McNally

This year, Guy Maddin set a record when his latest feature, the gangster-spookhouse drama Keyhole, made TIFF’s Canada Top Ten list. It was Maddin’s sixth time making the Canada’s Top Ten ranks, which has become something of a perennial honour. But Maddin’s placement, on both the features and shorts lists, seems to prove the vitality of short filmmaking in Canada.

Here, short films aren’t just calling cards directors leave en route to producing features. (Though, certainly, this does happen; like with that aesthetically and conceptually bloated short Patch Town short from TIFF 2011 that is set to become an aesthetically and conceptually slender feature.) But, whether because of government subsidy, the NFB, the Oscar noms for animated, or the cultural purchase of filmmakers like Guy Maddin, short films have become an integral part of Canada’s cultural fabric. Well, the cinema part of it, anyways. 

So good on James McNally, a local film blogger behind the excellent Toronto Screenshots, for mobilizing Toronto’s film culture around shorts. McNally’s teamed up with the NFB for Shorts That Are Not Pants, a new short film screening series that kicks off Friday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. at the NFB Mediatheque. We talked to McNally about the series, his passion for short films, and the state of this “Toronto film culture” we keep hearing about.

The A.V. Club: What’s the deal with the name? Is it some sort of half-obscure British slang?

James McNally: Yes, the name is a bit of a pun. In the U.K. (and possibly elsewhere), saying something is “pants” is saying it’s not very good. These shorts are not like that, hence the name.

AVC: How did Shorts That Are Not Pants come about?

JM: I started putting together shorts programs in 2009 and inviting a small group of friends over to see them. Since my wife and I live in an 800-square-foot apartment, we couldn’t fit any more than about 12 people in. I wanted to open things up to a larger crowd (and to people beyond my usual circle of friends) and see these films on a proper screen, too. Alas, that means I have to charge money for tickets.

AVC: What attracts you to short films? It seems like they’re often relegated as being calling cards to aspiring feature filmmakers, though maybe that’s less true in Canada.

JM: I’ve always thought of short films as a bit like short stories. There’s something really elegant about being able to tell a story in a compressed amount of time. And, it often leads to experimentation. It’s also where most filmmakers begin, and that sense of discovering a new talent is always exciting to me. But I also think that films in general should be free to be as long as they need to be to tell their story. I’m eager to see if new systems of crowd-funding and self-distribution, as well as accessible “pop up festivals” like ours, might make it feasible for someone to build a career as a filmmaker without having to make a “feature.” 

AVC: When did you partner with the NFB? Does this mean the program will have more of a Canadian focus?

JM: I’ve always been a big fan of the NFB, and their reputation for producing excellent short films, especially animated ones, made it a no-brainer to team up with them. I also think their Mediatheque cinema is the perfect venue for us. It’s just the right size—it holds up to 75—and it’s centrally located. I’m committed to featuring the work of Canadian filmmakers along with international ones, whether they’ve worked with the NFB or elsewhere. Toronto is home to a number of great short filmmakers, and I’m hoping to invite some of them to bring their work as a part of future screenings.

AVC: Are there any films in the program you’re especially excited about?

JM: Truthfully, they’re all good, but I was particularly knocked out by David O’Reilly’s The External World. I don’t want to say too much about it, but if you like the slapstick antics of video game characters tempered with a dose of existential melancholy, you’re going to love this film. Less slapstick-y but equally melancholy is Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby’s Wild Life, about an Englishman who comes to Alberta in 1909 to raise cattle and finds himself way out of his depth. It deservedly earned a place on the Oscars shortlist for Best Animated Short this year.

AVC: You’re a pretty key figure in Toronto’s film scene, and especially the film blogging scene. What’s the state of Toronto’s film culture, honestly? Adam Nayman wrote a piece for The Grid about the T.O. film scene a week or two back, and got half-coherently assailed in the comments by a guy who said that Toronto’s film culture is a joke, despite all the rep cinemas and stuff opening up. Do you find it hard to mobilize Toronto’s film culture, whatever it may be, to actually stop watching DVDs at home and come out to screenings?

JM: I think we have an embarrassment of riches in Toronto, quite apart from the dozens of film festivals we host each year. From the TIFF Bell Lightbox to the scrappy rep places like the Toronto Underground, the Royal and the Projection Booth, to the microcinemas of Reg Hartt (Cineforum) and Martin Heath (Cinecycle), and Jeff Wright’s Refocus Film screening series. There’s always interesting stuff on at the NFB Mediatheque as well. And I haven’t even mentioned all of the great indie video stores that are still going. Alas, we lost Black Dog Video this past year but Suspect, Queen St. Video, Upstairs Video, and Eyesore continue to stock hard-to-find stuff.

I know it’s much easier to stay at home and watch a DVD, especially in cold and dark January, but there’s something about being in a room with a bunch of strangers, giving yourself over to a big screen, as opposed to staring into the small screen of your phone, television, or computer, that’s still magical. Rick Groen wrote about this in the Globe a little while back, and I hope I’m not the last of a dying breed who agrees with him. Plus, I’m hoping to drag along a good portion of the audience after the screening on Friday to a local pub to talk about the films. I’m not buying, though.