Today's blog post is going to be about  Lower East Side Film Festival (June 13-23) I'm going to be attending next week where I'll take a look at all the animated short films that I’ve been reading about for the past week and a half. The list of movies in the festival are Move Mountain by Kirsten Lepore, Il Nozzo by Sarah Rothberg, I Have Your Heart by Jim Batt, The Supersoaker by Chris Koelsch, Cicada Princess by Mauricio Baiocchi and Fear of Flying by Conor Finnegan. I’m especially excited to watch Cicada Princess since I just recently  watched and admired Return of the Cicadas by Samuel Orr on his Vimeo page and extensively searched cicadas online. Upon learning that they wait for 13 or 17 years underground as insects, they emerge and molt, or shed their skin, and become cicadas and become able to fly before ending their life cycle after two to four weeks. The short yet explanatory plot line for the short film Cicada Princess reads “Cicadas go to the party at the end of their lives” and just the image of various animated cicadas partying their lives away after only being an adult for two to three weeks was enough to get me chucking.

(image taken from http://www.cicadaprincess.com/studio.html#6) 

As I’ve written in my last blog, the concept of online distribution fascinates me and the lack of education about this platform in film schools or classes still remains a question to me. To delve deeper into the topic of online film distribution, I’m also going to go to the L.E.S. Chats: Digital Distribution panel. As the title suggests, the panel that’s moderated by Chris Rovzar, who is the Digital Editor at Vanity  Fair, will discuss issues like self-distribution, marketing and also available platforms that are suitable for these purposes. 

(Images taken from http://www.lesfilmfestival.com/)