Short Film – Matchbox Cine

The Obsession of John Paizs

John Paizs is a legendary figure in Canadian cinema whose pivotal and influential cult masterpiece Crime Wave (1985) continues to entrance audiences but elude mainstream recognition. Following our UK premiere of the restored Crime Wave at Glasgow Film Festival, 2017, we are delighted to present his first major work, The Obsession of Billy Botski, on its 40th anniversary, as part of Glasgow Short Film Festival’s DIVE IN Cinema season. Watch it now here.

In The Obsession of Billy Botski, “a young man meets his obsession, a ghostly 60s Playboy-bunny styled “Connie”, and is never the same!”

The film is accompanied by The Obsession of John Paizs, a brand-new 26min video created by Matchbox Cineclub, featuring a rare and exclusive interview with Paizs himself. Our DIVE IN programme is live for only 48 hours from 10am on 18th July, and The Obsession of John Paizs will not be available anywhere afterwards. The entire programme features all-new optional English SDH/captions for D/deaf audiences, created by Matchbox Cinesub.

DIVE IN Cinema is a donation-based online season, coordinated by Glasgow Short Film Festival’s Sanne Jehoul and programmed by a cohort of Scottish independent exhibitors and film festivals.

Thanks to John Paizs, Winnipeg Film Group and VUCAVU.

The Winnipeg Film Group, founded in 1974, is an artist-run education, production, exhibition and distribution centre committed to promoting the art of cinema.

VUCAVU is an online screening platform working with independent film and video distributors from across Canada to improve access to Canadian works and to provide greater national and international awareness of Canadian filmmakers and video artists.

DIVE IN Cinema is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.

Jackal Films: The Making of Stiffy

Following our Glasgow Short Film Festival retrospective programme, Two Weirds Is Too Weird: The Jackal Films of Alice Lowe & Jacqueline Wright, director Jacqueline Wright has very kindly allowed us to host The Making Of Stiffy, a behind the scenes look at her 2005 short, written by and starring Alice Lowe. Watch it now, with descriptive subtitles, on our Facebook page.

Two Weirds Is Too Weird

jackalfilms_queenbee — Alice Lowe in *Queen B* (Jacqueline Wright, 2010) © Jackal Films

We’re thrilled to be teaming up with Glasgow Short Film Festival for the first time with Two Weirds Is Too Weird: The Jackal Films of Alice Lowe and Jacqueline Wright. As huge fans of Alice, British comedy and GSFF, this is a very exciting development.

Before Alice Lowe wrote, directed and starred in Prevenge, the triple-threat-to-be teamed with director Jacqueline Wright on a series of strange and hilarious shorts. As Lowe has explained, “Being a woman is weird, and you’re allowed one weird. Being surreal is two weirds, and you’re not allowed two weirds… Two weirds is too weird.” With feline erotica, courtly necrophilia and aspiring mermaids, under their Jackal Films banner the two struck a path for themselves through a restrictive culture.

If we only knew Alice from her cameo as David Bowie in Snuff Box (“man was built but from clay”), we’d be over the moon to be programming this feature-length retrospective of rarely-screened shorts (mostly from 2005-2010). But then there’s her roles in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, Black Mountain Poets, Adult Life Skills, Sightseers, the latter of which she also co-wrote, innumerable cameo appearances (including, most recently, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) and two series of her BBC Radio 4 sketch show, Alice’s Wunderland. And, of course, that incredible directorial debut, Prevenge.

The shorts made in collaboration with Jacqueline Wright are typically Loweian. There’s parody music videos, melodramatic pastiche and character-based vignettes, where Lowe and her cavalcade of co-stars (plenty of familiar faces) really get to shine. In tone, performance and quality these shorts do prefigure Prevenge and of course they’re part of a rich lineage of short form and sketch comedy. But they also stand alone as exemplars of women-driven creativity, ingenuity and productivity – and glorious, multi-faceted weirdness.

Two Weirds Is Too Weird: The Jackal Films of Alice Lowe and Jacqueline Wright takes place at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Friday 15th March at 9pm. Tickets are on sale here.

GSFF have launched their full 2019 programme – read all about it here, or browse their brochure here.

Screenshot 2019-02-06 at 11.27.54