The short film compilation ‘102 Minutes of Shorts’ tends to be like the tapas bar of the film festival. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, lots of variety but after sampling a few, you feel satisfied like you have had a nice varied meal.

But this year the films in ‘102 Minutes of Shorts’ all seemed to have the same flavour — and that flavour was outright bizarre. Some were puzzling, some were ambitious, some attempted to be light-hearted but almost all in a bizarre way.

One notable exception, and probably my favourite of the seven of nine shorts in ‘102 Minutes’ which I had the opportunity to review, was ‘Freedom Days’. This 12-minute short set in Cape Town on the 10th anniversary “Freedom Day”, marking the 10 years since the first post-Apartheid election, was moving and felt whole. Filmmaker Quinton Lavery weaves together the story of two couples to show the vicious, endless circle of violence and racism in the country. In addition to telling a powerful tale very briefly, this film looked great.

On the other end of the spectrum is ‘Dream On’, a one-man, five-minute monologue where Nick Ball offers vignettes from the life of an aspiring actor and writer. While Nick seems to set out with the best intentions, his auditions and meetings always go wrong and the audience can imagine why when he relates the odd and counterintuitive statements he makes along the way. This film felt like and unfinished thought, there was not quite enough there to feel like there was a point. It was like one lone, friendless scene from Ricky Gervais HBO show ‘Extras’ but with fewer real laughs.

Ireland’> ‘Tell it to the Fishes’ made a better stab at humour, albeit dark humour. The 10-minute short finds two men who are less than friendly caught in the same perilous predicament on a Northern Ireland beach. The two divide their time between trying to save themselves and taking swings at one another.

Perhaps the most ambitious of the shorts, ‘Loveproof’, takes us to a futuristic world where the only safe place is a militaristic state where soldiers are allowed to return with brides as long as the brides are fertile and can pro-create within 30 days. If they can’t they face deportation, “reassignment” or the young man being sent to a work camp. Into this predicament are dropped the very much in love couple of Michael and Anna — but as time ticks away their situation grows ever more desperate. Michael and Anna’s story underlines the sacrifices that are necessary — and we seem willing to make — when we have found true love.

A colder tale is told in the 15-minute Australian shorB>‘Snow’<$>. This short manages to make viewers feel cold both with its sterile snow scenes and creaking, scratching wintry sounds and its strange, disturbing plot. There seem to be many films in this year’s BIFF line-up featuring odd, troubled children and Snow’s Ben is a perfect example.

Another is the animated boy Tom in ‘T.O.M.R<$>, who takes us through his most bizarre daily routine from waking in the morning to arriving at school. To say anymore of this three-minute short would be to ruin it. It simply left me feeling uncomfortable for both Tom and myself.

But the strongest flavour of bizarre has to be that offered in the eight-minute US sh ‘Hairlady’<$>. I don’t know why but the title alone, Hairlady, all one word, kind of creeped me out. This stylistic short looks cool, offers little dialogue and has an awesome soundtrack but as the sight stunt is repeated and repeated one is simply left asking — why?

[bul] Also screening in ‘102 Minutes of Shorts’ are Bermudian Glenn Fubler’s short ‘Jokers are Trumps’ and ‘Thomas in Bloom’, however these short films were not available for review.