I have been living and working in the UK for about a month now and as I go about my travels meeting various people in the film industry, one thing is abundantly clear - the short film is alive and well. Everyone - from producers to filmmakers to film commissions and festivals - is still amazingly enamored by the short film. There are seemingly thousands of schemes, festivals, outlets for the short filmmaker to hone their craft, meet a sales agent or get their work screened. Short films are even corporate supported by the likes of Orange, COBRA beer and Nokia. The COBRA beer shorts are even screened on television!

Coming from the no man's land for the short film as the US has become, it is both distressing and refreshing that the short film is thriving amongst these shores. I am so happy that the Brits have figured out a way to make money on the darn things - something that doesn't exist in the US. Cable channels like IFC and Sundance used to buy shorts with abandon. Atom Films and Hypnotic basically built their businesses on this fact alone. But wait, what is this I hear - there is no actual cash in the production or distribution of short films in the UK??? Then, why such much of the love. Making for the art is great if you have the cash but the kind of budgets being spent are pretty high for these films and I don't mean to be that girl but aren't the days of making shorts as "calling cards" over. There are music videos and commercials for that, even something as simple as the great pitch can get you a feature made these days. I don't get it. But being the intrepid reporter that I am, I asked around. "Why still make so many short films?" The responses pretty unanimously were "because we do" and "because we can get money for them" Unlike in the US, where the only place you are going to get the cash to make a short film is from your rich relative who wants to see their name on the big screen just once, in the UK, the government - both on the local and national level- provided funding for short films (production and distribution). I have seen a number of these films over the past few weeks and a lot of them are quite good so i can't gripe that the money is being spent on crap. I just am a bit confused as to why so much of the money and support is being given to making short films in Britain and not so much on funding, marketing and support for features to be made in Britain.

But maybe it's just me.

Keeping it indie,

Julie