Short and poignant

Sundance film festival is very popular, but it is very far away which makes it incredibly hard to get to. However, the Worldwide Short Film Festival has made viewing the best of Sundance very easy indeed.

For the first time ever in my life I fell in love with a musical, West Bank Story. It is a comedic look at the Palestinian/Isreali conflagration using inspiration from West Side Story. It is an excellent movie no matter how you slice it. Surprisingly the audience's reaction was even better than The Sadness of Johnson Joe Jangels.

West Bank Story is a love story between a Palestinian daughter and an Israeli solider. "A raucous musical ride through the Middle East" is perhaps the best way to describe it. Even the building of a wall is all done in jest, nothing in the movie is too serious and provided a breath of fresh air from the other films that were screened.

The other movies all dealt with very serious topics ranging from the horrible way Australia treats landed refugees to homophobia.

The line up of movies provided much to think about. I found most of them to be like an Oliver Stone movie insofar that they teneded to send an obvious message and wouldn't stop sending that message until you couldn't think of anything else.

The Youth in Us didn't do that, which made it an enjoyable experience. The topic that the movie confronts is well hidden until the end. The movie tends to make you think of another issue until one scene and then it makes you think really hard.