For 2009, the 10-day festival will host a special weekend event called Springboard, which will showcase 20 up-and-comers in the domestic film industry. Participants were chosen from a list of 50 drawn up by a jury that included producer Michael Donovan ( Bowling for Columbine), director Bruce McDonald ( Hard Core Logo, Pontypool) and Maclean's film critic Brian D. Johnson.

Writer/director Mo Perkins' "A Quiet Little Marriage" and director Eric Bricker's doc "Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman" won the top audience award nods at the 2008 Austin Film Festival. Amanda Boyle's "Pop Art" took best narrative short, while doc short went to "Road to Tlacotepec" by Berndt Mader and Flemish Beauty's "The Inquisitive Snail" won animated short.

We spoke with members of the Toronto film collective team, Flemish Beauty, behind a number of films including the 1 minute animated short, The Inquisitive Snail.

For four days in November, the Port City will be immersed in an eclectic and sophisticated pool of independent films at the 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival. Cutting-edge technology and daring, sometimes politically charged, subject matter will be juxtaposed with humor and creativity. Some of the early international selections include The Inquisitive Snail by Flemish Beauty of Canada, Cutecutecute submitted by Clemens Kogler of Germany and Ano una (The Year of the Nail) by Mexican filmmaker JonáÔ Cuaron.

ANOTHER SHORT FILM lunch hour offering from the D.C. Shorts Film Festival, but this one is family friendly. This hour-long program of animated films includes a one-minute claymation masterpiece entitled "The Inquisitive Snail" and a treatise on global warming (cartoon Al Gore not included.)

I chose to bring this particular piece to attention here, because it deserves a second thought for what it so effortlessly accomplishes... in regards to utilizing the short form to induce an explicit response from the viewer played off decades worth of short story-telling convention. As such I think it's fair to say this piece showed just as much if not more promise for this filmmaker as any of the other showcased in this particular collection.  Some of the sharpest writing, gorgeous visual construction, and subtly impressive manipulation of the short film format seen there.  I love it.

The D.C. Shorts Film Festival, which MovieMaker Magazine recently called "one of the nation's leading short film festivals," has become a premier venue for local and national filmmakers alike... Films include "The Inquisitive Snail", an animated piece about a snail sent to spy on a remote town

A few kid-friendly films are on the SIFF lineup today, including a one-minute-long Canadian animation titled "The Inquisitive Snail" (pictured). It screens with other shorts in a a program called "The Family Picture Show" at 11 a.m. at SIFF Cinema.

Shane: Tell us about your film?

 

Flemish Beauty Collective:  Our movie is a Stop-Motion Animation about a little snail, living in a very dangerous world. It's the shortest short we've ever made, (1 minute, credits included) and it took the combined work of 9 people, over 4 weeks to make it!

Since the Maryland Film Festival doesn't give out awards, we came up with a few of our own.

 

• Best inspiration for a film: Screenwriter Adam Kirkham had an idea for a one-minute short comedy about secrets, but didn't know what to make of the main character. Then, in a deadly accident, an idea came to him. Charging down a set of stairs, Kirkham sidestepped one snail only to squash another gooey creature that was lounging nearby. Suddenly, he had an epiphany. 'I was like, 'This just makes sense,'' he said. Thus, the film The Inquisitive Snail was born.

The weekend's offerings included a silent film with live music accompaniment (Underworld), an investigation into just what people around the world think of the United States (The Listening Project), a couple of squabbling Bigfoot hunters (Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie), a drama centering on a black man trying to get in touch with his heritage (White Lies, Black Sheep), a look at Harry Potter fanatics (We Are Wizards), a golden-age 3-D movie starring Rita Hayworth (Miss Sadie Thompson) and a short starring a curious mollusk (The Inquisitive Snail).

The Flemish Beauty animation team gets this program started with a quick and cute clay-animation piece about a pet snail.

Partial transcript of an interview between host Jian Ghomeshi and resident CBC Radio film critic Jesse Wente.  Jesse is also a programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and served on the panel of judges at the 5th annual One Minute Film and Video Festival in Toronto who awarded The Inquisitive Snail with a prize for Best Animated Film.