FRENCH SHORT FILMS - 3
Basketball & Maths by Rodolphe Marconi (2000) (France) (6m)
Basketball and Maths (Basket et Maths) is a short piece from gay Paris-born filmmaker Rodolphe Marconi. He went on to make two fiction feature films, one of which, The Last Day, returned to the same story of a young, unrequited gay love found in Basket et Maths. It seems obvoius that Marconi is drawing from personal experience here. He also made a feature documentary on fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, called Lagerfeld Confidential.
The Stairway by Alex Torterotot (2011) (France) (4m) *
The Stairway (L'Escalier) was our Summer 2011 Competition winner. Alexandra Torterotot is a French filmmaker based in New York although The Stairway (L'Escalier) was shot in her native Paris. Written by Sylvain Aubert-Garmendia, The Stairway is a simple and nightmarish story of a man who cannot escape a never-ending but always changing series of stairways. When not making shorts, Alexandra had been working as a script supervisor and on feature projects.
Majorettes In Space by David Fourier (1997) (France) (6m) 
Majorettees In Space (Des Majorettes Dans L'Espace) was written and directed by French filmmaker David Fourier, who vanished from the scene after making several shorts. Majorettes is a comical - and very French - lambasting of the policies of the Catholic Church - then headed by Jean-Paul II - which insisted that contraception was against God's will despite the continuing spread of AIDS.
Mei Ling by Lansaque & Leroy (2009) (France) (15m) *
Written and directed by French duo, Stéphanie Lansaque and François Leroy, Me Ling is an unusual but lovely animation set in in the Orient. Mei Ling is a young Chinese girl living on her own and waiting eternally for her cold-hearted boyfriend. However, having chopped up an adult octapus, she finds a baby octapus lurking in the kitchen sink, and decides to spare its life. The octapus grows and a silent friendship builds up between two loners.
