Short Film Showcase - Cashback (2004)

Cashback, 2004.

Written and Directed by Sean Ellis.
Starring Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, Stuary Goodwin, Michael Dixon and Michael Lambourne.

Cashback centres on an aspiring art student, Ben (Sean Biggerstaff), who spends his nights working the graveyard shift at his local 24 hour supermarket. While his co-workers all have their own methods of wasting time as the clock ticks down on their shift, Ben has his own unique technique for fending off boredom by imagining that time stands still, giving him the freedom to explore his creative side.

Although Cashback received some criticism towards its excessive nudity, the short went on to win 14 awards including Best Narrative Short at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, while it was also nominated for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in March 2006, losing out to Martin McDonagh's Six Shooter. Cashback also went on to inspire the full-length feature of the same name, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival before receiving theatrical runs in the UK and North America.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Movies... For Free! Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Dick Tracy's Dilemma a.k.a Mark of the Claw, 1947.

Directed by John Rawlins.
Starring Ralph Byrd, Kay Christopher, Lyle Latell, Jack Lambert, Ian Keith, Bernadene Hayes, Jimmy Conlin, William B. Davidson, Tony Barrett and Tom Keene.

After releasing two features with Morgan Conway as Chester Gould's celebrated police detective Dick Tracy, RKO bowed to exhibitor pressure and recast Conway with Ralph Byrd, the actor who had made his name as Tracy in four Republic serials between 1937 and 1941.

Dick Tracy's Dilemma sees the detective investigating a number of crimes - the theft of a fortune in furs, an insurance swindle and the obligatory murders - all of which he links to a hook-handed criminal known as The Claw. Returning to the cast for this third outing are Lyle Latell as Pat Patton and Ian Keith as Vitamin Flintheart, while Kay Christopher takes over from Anne Jeffreys as Tracy's girlfriend Tess Trueheart.


Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Short Film Showcase - Knick Knack (1989)

Knick Knack, 1989.

Written and Directed by John Lasseter.
Original Music by Bobby McFerrin.

The final computer animated short produced by Pixar before the release of their debut feature Toy Story in 1995, Knick Knack revolves around a snowman, Knick, who finds himself trapped inside a snowglobe while the rest of the souvenirs on his shelf are enjoying a party in the sun. Desperate to join in the fun, Knick employs a number of methods to break free of his glass prison and eventually finds a means of escape, only for his plan to backfire on him.

Knick Knack was Pixar's first foray into 3D and premiered in this format at the 1988 SIGGRAPH Animation Show. It was later completely rebuilt for a 2D theatrical release alongside Finding Nemo, with this new version incorporating reduced breast sizes on two of its characters, the Miami bikini girl and the Atlantis mermaid. This updated version also enjoyed a theatrical 3D run in 2006 when it was attached to the 3D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Knick Knack (2003 version):


Knick Knack (original version):


Related:

Animated Storytellers: A Pixar Animation Studios Profile
Short Film Showcase - The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.
Short Film Showcase - Luxo Jr.

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Shooter (2009)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Shooter, 2009.

Directed by Ronnie B. Goodwin.
Starring Paul Hunter.
Written by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Paul Hunter.
Produced by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Basil Khalil.
Music by Gregor Narholz.

Shooter is a multi-award winning short from director Ronnie B. Goodwin about an ex-soldier (Paul Hunter) haunted by his experiences of conflict. Seeking solitude in the wilderness of the mountains, lochs and forests of Scotland, the shooter is torn between the images of the inhumanity of war that plague his imagination and the natural beauty that surrounds him. Running at just five minutes, Shooter does a fine job of conveying the protagonist's internal struggle to deliver a thought-provoking and emotive piece of filmmaking.

The film has enjoyed a successful run on the festival circuit these past two years, including 27 Official Selections (including the Cannes Short Film Corner, Palm Springs International Short Fest and the Edinburgh International Film Festival), 2 Jury Nominations and 4 International Awards, while it was also named Best in Festival at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in 2010. Shooter has also recently enjoyed its British TV premiere on the Sky Super Shorts Channel, and you can find out more about the film and Ronnie's upcoming projects at his official site.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Diary (2010)

Diary, 2010.

Directed by Tim Hetherington.

Earlier this week came the sad news that acclaimed British war photographer and documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack while covering the ongoing conflict in Libya. Having spent much of the past decade in war zones such Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Afghanistan, Hetherington had contributed to the acclaimed documentaries Liberia: An Uncivil War and The Devil Came on Horseback before receiving an Oscar nomination for his work as co-director (alongside Sebastian Junger) of Restrepo (2010), the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

In tribute to Tim here is his most recent work, the short film Diary, described by the filmmaker as "a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media."


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - The Key to Reserva (2007)

The Key to Reserva, 2007.

Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Simon Baker, Kelli O'Hara, Michael Stuhlbarg, Christopher Denham and Richard Easton.

Collaborating with screenwriter Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven, Matchstick Men) and long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese directed and starred in The Key to Reserva, a 10-minute short film which was created as a long-form commcercial for Spanish wine company Freixenet.

The film begins with Scorsese giving an interview about a supposedly unfinished three-page screenplay by Alfred Hitchcock which has recently been discovered. Scorsese intends to produce a screen version, faithfully recreating Hitchcock's style as a tribute to the legendary British director, with the remainder of the short then intercutting between the interview, the production stage and the final 'film-within-a-film', The Key to Reserva.

Joining Scorsese in the cast for the short are Simon Baker (The Killer Inside Me), Kelli O'Hara (Sex and the City 2), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Simple Man), Christopher Denham (Shutter Island) and Richard Easton (Revolutionary Road), along with appearances by Griffen and Schoonmaker as themselves.


For more on Martin Scorsese check out our latest filmmaker profile Understanding Scorsese.

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Luxo Jr. (1986)

Luxo Jr., 1986.

Written and Directed by John Lasseter.

Luxo Jr. is the first short film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, which arrived in 1986 to coincide with their establishment as an independent entity following Steve Jobs' purchase of the Computer Graphics Group from George Lucas. Written and directed by John Lasseter (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2 and Cars) as a demonstration of Pixar's technical capabilities, the two-and-a-half minute piece follows the antics of a small desk lamp, Luxo Jr., who would go on to become the company's unofficial corporate mascot.

Luxo Jr. premiered at the 1986 SIGGRAPH conference in Dallas, Texas, where it received a standing ovation from those in attendance. It was the first CG-animated film to receive an Oscar nomination (although it lost out to A Greek Tragedy for Best Animated Short Film at the 59th Academy Awards) and is credited with shifting opinion on the possibilities of computer animation within Hollywood. Luxo Jr. also enjoyed a theatrical run in 1999 when it played alongside Pixar's third feature, Toy Story 2.


Related:

Animated Storytellers: A Pixar Animation Studios Profile
Short Film Showcase - The Adventures of Andre and Wally B.

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - StreetFighter: Legacy (2010)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

StreetFighter: Legacy, 2010.

Directed by Joey Ansah and Owen Trevor.
Written by Joey Ansah and Christian Howard.
Starring Jon Foo, Christian Howard and Joey Ansah.

It's fair to say live-action adaptations of Capcom's Street Fighter video game franchise have been utterly disappointing - first up was the Jean-Claude Van Damme monstrosity Street Fighter (1994) from writer-director Steven E. de Souza, followed by the equally appalling 2009 reboot Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Step forward British filmmaker and actor Joey Ansah (The Bourne Ultimatum) who, driven by his love for the video game series, looked to rectify the situation with the highly impressive three-minute fan film StreetFighter: Legacy.

Working alongside co-director Owen Trevor (Top Gear) and a team that included producer Jacqueline Quella (Toolbox Murders) and executive producer Anthony Waye (the James Bond franchise), Ansah secured Capcom's blessing for the project, which faithfully recreates a showdown between fan favourites Ryu (Jon Foo) and Ken (Christian Howard). Having debuted the film online in May of this year to much success, Ansah is now hoping to nab the rights to develop an official live-action Street Fighter series.

For more on StreetFighter: Legacy, visit the offical website.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Aventure Malgache (1944)

Aventure Malgache, 1944.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring Paul Bonifas, Paul Clarus, Jean Dattas, Andre Frere, Guy Le Feuvre and Paulette Preney, a.k.a. 'The Molière Players'.

Originally entitled Madagascar Landing, Aventure Malgache is the second of two British propaganda films produced by Alfred Hitchcock for the British Ministry of Information. Shot in French and intended as a morale booster for the Resistance, Hitchcock used his experience with the French government on the preceeding short Bon Voyage to explore the disjointed nature of the Resistance movement and its infiltration by Nazi spies and Vichy collaborators.

Aventure Malgache's government backers were unimpressed with Hitchcock's numerous jokes and stereotypes, not to mention his depiction of the French as 'anti-British', and the film was never released for public screening until it reemerged in the early 1990s as part of a double-bill with Bon Voyage.


Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Bon Voyage (1944)

Bon Voyage, 1944.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring John Blythe and 'The Molière Players'.

The first of two propaganda films made by Alfred Hitchcock on behalf of the British Ministry of Information and designed to boost morale for the French Resistance, Bon Voyage tells the story of a daring escape from a Nazi prison by RAF Sergeant John Dougall (John Blythe). Co-scripted by Angus MacPhail, the man credited by Hitchcock as coining the term 'MacGuffin', Bon Voyage is also notable for its early use of multiple viewpoints - a technique employed by Akira Kurosawa to great effect in the 1950 classic Rashomon - and the 'unreliable flashback' that Hitchcock would revisit that same year with Stage Fright.

Receiving only sporadic screenings in France at the time of its release, Bon Voyage was shelved for a number of years before being broadcast on US television alongside follow-up Aventure Magalache in the early 1990s.


Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Guillotine Guys (2010)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Guillotine Guys, 2010.

Written and Directed by James Ricardo.
Starring Russ Kingston, Mark Wood and J.C. Maçek III.

Guillotine Guys is a short comedy thriller "about loss and detachment" from Los Angeles-based filmmaker James Ricardo, best known for his 2005 feature debut, the independent comedy Opie Gets Laid (a.k.a. Sunnyvale). The darkly comic tale centres on a liquor store hold-up that takes an unexpected turn for the robber (Mark Wood) when he finds himself up against the cunning of weary shopkeeper Elmer (Russ Kingston).

An imaginative and well-crafted short that also features an impressive soundtrack courtesy of composer Jason Solowsky, Guillotine Guys screened at a number of festivals in 2010 including the Arizona International Film Festival, LA Shorts Fest and South Korea's Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Jesus vs. Santa (1995)

Jesus vs. Santa (a.k.a. The Spirit of Christmas), 1995.

Written, Directed, Produced, Animated and Voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

After seeing the original 1992 version of The Spirit of Christmas, Fox executive Brian Graden commissioned Trey Parker and Matt Stone to create a follow-up which he could use as a video Christmas card to send to friends. The resulting film (known as Jesus vs. Santa) features a more-refined and familiar animation style along with named versions of Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan, who find themselves mediating an argument between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas (which is of course presents).

The short was initially distributed to Graden's friends in December 1995 and went on to generate interest as a bootleg before coming to the attention of Comedy Central, who hired Parker and Stone to develop the film as a series, South Park, which debuted in 1997. That same year Jesus vs. Frosty also received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Animation.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - Jesus vs. Frosty (1992)

Jesus vs. Frosty (a.k.a. The Spirit of Christmas), 1992.

Written, Directed, Produced, Animated and Voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

An early precursor to South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone created the four minute short The Spirit of Christmas as students as the University of Colorado. Animated by hand using construction paper, glue and an 8mm camera and featuring characters not dissimilar to their South Park counterparts, The Spirit of Christmas is the first of two shorts produced by the pair under the same title (the other coming in 1995) and has come to be known as Jesus vs. Frosty.

After building a snowman, four young boys put a magic hat on their creation which brings it to life as an evil version of Frosty the Snowman. It quickly kills the only named character, Kenny (who happens to resemble Cartman), leading to the phrase "Oh my God! Frosty killed Kenny!", and pursues the children until they stumble across a nativity scene, with the baby Jesus coming to their rescue and defeating the creature.

The Spirit of Christmas premiered at a student film screening in 1992 and led to Fox executive Brian Graden commissioning a follow-up, Jesus vs. Santa, in 1995.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions 2005 (2005)

The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions 2005, 2005.

Directed by Jalmari Helander.
Written by Jalmari Helander and Juuso Helander.
Starring Otso Tarkela, Tommi Korpela, Jorma Tommila, Tazu Ovaska, Otto, Aimo Lehtonen, and Jonathan Hutchings (narrator).

"Not meant for the public eye, this film reveals the dark reality of what's wrong with company's product. With its primitive instincts triggered by bad behaviour of people around it, the seemingly tame Father Christmas will forget the intensive training and turn into a brutal beast. You better watch out, you better not cry, There's no room for mistakes."

The Official Rare Exports Inc. Safety Instructions 2005 is the sequel to Jalmari Helander's short fantasy film Rare Exports Inc. and takes the form of an instructional video showing new employees of the Father Christmas distribution company how to tame the feral bloodthirsty creatures. Helander has since developed the concept into his debut feature, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), which was released earlier this month.


Visit the official site at Woodpecker Films.

Related:

Short Film Showcase - Rare Exports Inc. (2003)

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - This Way Up (2008)

This Way Up, 2008.

Directed by Adam Foulkes and Alan Smith.
Written by Adam Foulkes, Alan Smith and Christopher O'Reilly.

Made with the support of BBC Films as part of the BBC Comedy Shorts commissioning scheme, This Way Up is a CG-animated black comedy about a pair of undertakers - A. T. Shank & Son - who have a bad day at the parlour when a falling boulder flattens their hearse. Forced to make their way cross country with just a coffin for company, the father and son duo embark on an adventure filled with emotional and literal pitfalls in a caper that puts the fun back into funeral.

This Way Up enjoyed a host of successful screenings in 2008 including the BFI London Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. Accolades for the nine-minute production include Best in Show at the SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival and the Shooting People Comedy Award at the London Short Film Festival, while it was also nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 81st Academy Awards in 2009.

For more on the film, visit the official site.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Movies... For Free! Escape from Sobibor (1987)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Escape from Sobibor, 1987.

Directed by Jack Gold.
Starring Alan Arkin, Joanna Pacuła, Rutger Hauer, Hartmut Becker, Jack Shepherd.

Escape from Sobibor is a British made-for-TV movie based on the 1982 book of the same name by Richard Rashke. Set in 1943, the film tells the true story of the uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp where roughly half of the 600 Jewish inmates escaped after members of the underground resistance turned on their captors.

Heading the cast is cult actor Rutger Hauer, who bagged a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Television) for his turn as Red Army Captain and resistance leader Alexander 'Sasha' Pechersky. The film premiered on American television on the CBS network on April 12th, 1987 and was shown on West German TV in January 1989.

There are two versions of Escape from Sobibor in existence - a 143 minute cut and an edited 120 minute DVD cut, which is the version presented here...


Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Click here to view all entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Short Film Showcase - Steamboat Willie (1928)

Steamboat Willie, 1928.

Produced and Directed by Walt Disney.
Animation by Ub Iwerks.
Story by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.
Music by Wilfred Jackson.

Disney's classic short Steamboat Willie was the third cartoon to feature mascot Mickey Mouse - the other two being Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho - and the first in the series to be produced with a synchronized soundtrack featuring music, sound effects and dialogue, supplied by Walt Disney himself.

Based on a story by Disney and two-time Academy Award-winning animator Ub Iwerks, the plot sees Mickey serving aboard the titular steamboat. When the yet-to-be-named Minnie arrives as a passenger, Mickey sets out to impress her by making musical instruments out of livestock, much to the displeasure of the ship's captain, Peg-Leg Pete.

Released theatrically ahead of the now-forgotten 1928 gangster film Gang War, Steamboat Willie has went on to attract controversy over its copyright status, having received numerous copyright extensions by the US Congress. 30 seconds of footage was also removed from many prints due to allegations of animal cruelty, although the version presented here is complete and uncensored.


Related:

Short Film Showcase - The Spirit of '43

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Short Film Showcase - 9 (2005)

9, 2005.

Written and Directed by Shane Acker.

Produced as a student project at the UCLA Animation Workshop, Shane Acker's 9 is an 11-minute short about a rag doll living in the decaying ruins of a post-apocalyptic Earth. Through flash-backs we learn that 9 is the last of his kind, his people having been hunted down by a mysterious creature known as the Cat Beast, who now pursues 9 across the wasteland leading to a final, climactic confrontation.

Originally intended as a stop-motion project, Acker spent four and a half years working on the computer animated film and it went on to earn a host of awards and accolades including a Student Academy Award for Animation, SIGGRAPH Best in Show, Best Animated Short (Florida Film Festival) and the Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Animation (Indianapolis International Film Festival), in addition to an Academy Award nomination for Animated Short Film in 2005, where it lost out to John Canemaker's The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation.

9 soon came to the attention of filmmaker Tim Burton, who produced a full-length feature adaptation in 2009 with Acker handling directing duties and a cast that included Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, John C. Reilly, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Movies... For Free! Jail Bait (1954)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain...


Jail Bait, 1954.

Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Starring Lyle Talbot, Steve Reeves, Herbert Rawlinson, Clancy Malone, Conrad Brooks, Dolores Fuller, Timothy Farrell and Theodora Thurman.

After his proposed Bela Lugosi supernatural TV series Dr. Acula failed to get off the ground, schlock filmmaker Ed Wood turned his hand to film noir for his second feature Jail Bait, which was produced under the title The Hidden Face. Inspired by the 1935 crime drama False Faces (a.k.a. Let 'em Have It), the film revolves around a gangster who plans to undergo drastic facial plastic surgery in order to evade the police. To do so he kidnaps the son of Dr. Gregor, played by English actor and silent era star Herbert Rawlinson, who died the day after filming was completed (the part was originally written for Lugosi, who dropped out after falling ill himself).

Jail Bait reunites Wood with Glen or Glenda cast members and regular collaborators Lyle Talbot, Timothy Farrell and Conrad Brookes (all of whom would go on to appear in the cult classic Plan 9 From Outer Space), along with then girlfriend Dolores Fuller. It also marks an early screen appearance for former bodybuilder Steve Reeves, who would later enjoy success in Europe in a string of low budget Italian sword-and-sandals efforts (as Europe's highest paid star of the time, Reeves reportedly turned down the roles of The Man With No Name in A Fistful of Dollars and James Bond in Dr. No).


Embed courtesy of Internet Archive.

Related:

Movies... For Free! Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

Click here to view all entries in our Movies... For Free! collection.

Movies... For Free! Duel (1971)

Duel, 1971.

Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Starring Dennis Weaver, Carey Loftin and Jacqueline Scott.


Written by I Am Legend novelist Richard Matheson and based off his own short story that had featured in Playboy, Duel is a psychological thriller about a motorist (Dennis Weaver) who is stalked by a crazed truck driver (Carey Loftin). It is notable for being the feature debut of Steven Spielberg, who had recently signed to a contract with Universal and had been honing his skills on the well-received TV pilot Night Gallery (1969) and episodes of several TV shows including Marcus Welby, M.D. (1970), Columbo (1971) and Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law (1971).

Shot on location in 13 days for an original running time of 74 minutes, Duel enjoyed high ratings when it premiered on US television as an ABC Movie of the Week in November 1971. This prompted Spielberg to embark on two additional days of filming, extending the movie to 90 minutes for a theatrical release in Europe and the UK (along with a limited North American release the following year). With the success Duel establishing Spielberg as a major emerging talent, he would go on to produce two further TV movies before making his theatrical feature film debut in 1974 with The Sugarland Express.

For more on Steven Spielberg, check out Trevor Hogg's in-depth career profile Encountering Spielberg and be sure to vote in our poll for your favourite Steven Spielberg movie.


Embed courtesy of GoogleVideo.

Related:

Five Essential Films of Steven Spielberg
Short Film Showcase - Amblin' (1968)

Click here to view more short films and public domain features.