Tonight was the third night of the festival, and it had a much lighter feel.  The short film that I saw tonight (leading up to the full-length film) was called “Cataplexy,” and I can honestly say that it was the most entertaining short film I have ever seen.

“Cataplexy” tells the story of a man who calls prostitutes to satisfy his sexual needs because he collapses when he experiences the feeling of love.  On the night depicted in the film, the call girl who shows up at his door is coincidentally a girl with whom he went to high school years earlier.  Of course, he falls for her in the end, and proceeds to fall face-first into his broccoli soup.

The short was refreshing because it seemed to be an abbreviated, cut-to-the-chase version of a romantic comedy.  It is not redundant or mundane or annoyingly predictable because predictability is not a concern with its short length.  The audience cannot leave angry at the unoriginal ending because the laudable conclusion was brought to them in a matter of minutes; and those minutes were enjoyable.  I spoke to the film’s director after it was shown and he agreed to do an interview, so expect more on this in a future blog post.

The full-length film that I saw tonight was called Losing Control.  The showing at Staller was the film’s east coast premiere, and its director, Valerie Weiss, and star, Miranda Kent, were both in attendance.  I loved it, and I also loved the fact that I was sitting two rows in front of Weiss and Kent and could turn around in the middle of the movie to see the reaction that Kent had to seeing herself on screen.

I will write more about the film itself and the Q&A session tomorrow.