How political discourse has gotten in the way of relationships and how to cope with this through love and compromise.
2. What genres would you say this story is in?
Political.
3. How would you describe this story in two words?
Sadly topical.
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life?
The Big Lebowski
5. What is your favorite song? (Or, what song have you listened to the most times in your life?)
I Will (The Beatles)
6. Do you have an all-time favorite novel?
The Cather in the Rye
7. What motivated you to write this story?
The sorry state of political discourse in our country and how it has needlessly and mindlessly divided us
8. If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Paul McCartney
9. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
I belong to Braver Angels. This organization brings Republicans and Democrats together to discuss issues in a fair, non-threatening and non-judgmental way. I firmly believe this is the way to a more unified and secure future for all of us.
10. What influenced you to enter your story to get performed?
I wanted to reach a wider audience with my message of love and compassion as the answer to divisive politics.
11. Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?
Keep writing even when the pile of rejection keeps growing and the naysayers become too much to bear.
Two children, who are forced to deal with the start of World War II and its struggles and loss of life consistency, seek a finer meaning of life and how to continue love. Despite both these sudden massive changes, they eventually recognize their mother’s determined wish. That wish is to find and enjoy the beauty always present in living life no matter what happenstance befall you . How? by experiencing her unique way of finding a piano although once lost and taking a new type of piano lesson, thereby finally realizing that beauty does always remain no matter what struggles and pain life hands you. This is a story that easily become a beautiful screenplay someday.
Performed by Val Cole
Get to know the writer:
1. What is your short story about?
Survival and finding lost joy again by doing so .
2. What genre(s) would you say this story is in?
Historical Short Fiction
3. How would you describe this story in two words?
Survival Joy
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life?
There are too many wonderful ones to pick a favorite, but “To Kill a Mockingbird” is certainly one of them. As a child I loved “The Wizard of Oz”. I also always watch “A Few Good Men”and all Sidney Poitier’s wonderful films.
5. Do you remember the time in your life when you realized that you wanted to write?
I think I was eight when I first started writing. My best friend and I then both started writing because her mother and two aunts, Marchette Chute and B.J. Chute, were very well known writers. Marchette Chute was a famous biographer who wrote Shakespeare of London. B. J. Chute wrote novels, including Green Willow, which was made into a Broadway show starring Tony Perkins. Given those amazing contacts, we both started writing our own stories in 2d and 4th grade.
6. Do you have an all-time favorite novel?
Gone With the Wind has been one of them, but I have many. Usually my favorite novel is the one I am reading and loving at the moment.
7. What is your favorite meal?
Broiled Lobster fresh from the ocean in Downeast Maine (Jonesport)
8. If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
There are many I’d like to meet, but one of them is certainly Robert Frost. He came from Vermont as did I, and I was honored to be able to serve him lunch at the Woodstock Inn many years ago when I was waiting table there during college.
9. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
Editing and helping others become superb writers, teaching at all levels, tutoring literacy and helping students with disabilities succeed, and of course playing the piano. That is where the idea for my short story originated.
10. Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?
There are many, but the most important probably is be true to yourself and to your characters and their themes. Also try out all kinds of genres and see where they lead you. I am a worldwide editor now and also a poet and a children’s writer. I studied screenwriting at Dartmouth with Bill Phillips and Maury Rapf and the Frommers. Bill wrote the screenplay for the movie, Christine, and worked with Stephen King on it. Maury came from a famous Hollywood family and worked with Walt Disney on several famous scripts. He also founded the Dartmouth Film Society and taught screenwriting there. The Frommers ( Myrna and Harvey) wrote books on the different times in New York and taught Liberal Studies. Always try to find other writers who can teach and inspire your own genius and help you create wonderfully. Writers groups are great too, especially small and intimate ones. I started one years back. The major key to becoming a better and a good writer is to keep writing, no matter the genre. Also, keep writing notebooks with your ideas noted. I’ve learned if you don’t write down a great idea when you first have it, it will easily disappear!
1. What is your short story about? An unnamed and unidentified narrator talks to a young man about the Dump Lands, where they work as a shoveler. “The Big Guys” eat what they like, they dump it without care, and leave the mess to be cleaned up by the workers. Through one long monologue, the narrator describes a horrifying reality of abuse and disillusion that may not be so unfamiliar to readers.
2. What genres would you say this story is in? Political satire, fiction, short story.
3. How would you describe this story in two words? Work, Rot.
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life? Bullet Train! It’s just so fun.
5. What is your favorite song? (Or, what song have you listened to the most times in your life?) Politicians in My Eyes by Black Pumas
6. Do you have an all-time favorite novel? To call one novel my favorite is a tall order. However, the book I’ve read recently that has stayed in my mind like an itching wart is Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
7. What motivated you to write this story? I shoveled a large pile of gravel for a home renovation, and as I shoveled, my mind went to a reality not too different from ours. It’s true, the rhythmic work is easy to fall into! The Big Guys emerged as a reaction to the current state of capitalism and disregard for the hard workers of this country.
8. If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be? My grandfather, I would like to show him everything I’ve done. He loved stories.
9. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about? I am passionate about literature, reading classics and new releases, anything that can grow my mind. I also speak passionately against the use of AI in literature and art.
10. What influenced you to enter your story to get performed? A glass of wine. More professionally, I liked the idea of having my story in another medium for my portfolio. WILDsound Festival is an accessible and supportive site that I was excited to become a part of!
11. Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers? Don’t edit as you write, you will stay on one paragraph for hours. Let the ugly words be ugly, write to your goal, then edit. Don’t value criticism from people you would not take advice from.
Estranged brothers confront their mother’s grave, unearthing buried resentments and dark secrets.
2. What genres would you say this story is in?
Crime genre
3. How would you describe this story in two words?
Poetic justice
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life?
The Wrestler (2008)
5. What is your favorite song?
Quarter on the Ground – Matt Andersen
6. Do you have an all-time favorite novel?
Asylum Series by Madeleine Roux
7. What motivated you to write this story?
This was my first attempt at writing in the crime genre. I’ve always enjoyed twists in stories while slowly giving aways hints. Hopefully I’ve done the genre justice.
8. If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
Edgar Allan Poe
9. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
The theatre. Especially your local community theatres. Outside of writing I try to support my local theatres through attendance and volunteering my time.
10. What influenced you to enter your story to get performed?
I’ve been trying for awhile to find this story a home, and when I learned about Wildsound and the vocal renditions I thought this could finally be the perfect fit.
11. Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?
Embrace rejection. You will have a lot of no’s when submitting your work, but for every rejection it gets you closer to refining your art and your search. It just makes the acceptance that mush sweeter
This is an encore presentation of the best of romance short films from around the world today. Originally played at the Carlton Cinemas in download Toronto on February 10th.
Simply sign up for the 3-day FREE trial to watch the festival, then keep watching a new daily film festival, plus watch a library of over 400 award-winning short films. You can cancel right away and not pay a cent. This is a platform that we have collaborated with Vimeo, and signing up for the trial makes sure the films are protected.
SEE THE LINEUP OF FILMS:
ATLS, 11min., Canada Directed by Mishka Balilty In a dystopian future where a powerful elite class prolongs their lives by exploiting young women for their babies’ organs, two women find themselves on the run from their oppressors. Desperate to escape the fate of forced impregnation and organ extraction, they flee to a remote cabin. Their refuge becomes a sanctuary where they share their dreams and fears, finding solace in each other’s company. However, their fleeting happiness is overshadowed by the ever-looming threat of capture. Their love story, which began in desperation and hope, culminates in a tragic and devastating finale. ATLS is a powerful exploration of love, freedom, and the inescapable shadows of a world that seeks to tear them apart.
A ROBOT ROM COM, 7min,. USA Directed by Jonathan Hludzinski A romantic comedy about a pair of robots who learn that love isn’t easy even if you can download it directly into your CPU.
DUNES, 10min., France Directed by Virginie Kahn It could be a Harlem theater in the fifties. Two strangers share the same emotion while watching a movie. The cinema exit door opens onto an imaginary desert where they will meet, alone in the world, around a dance that is sometimes tender, sometimes dramatic, and soon playful. A tribute to the feelings we share when going to the cinema.
HIRA, 10min., Italy Directed by Emanuele Colognese Hira loves sunflower seeds, the red color, and the silence that envelops the world when she extinguishes it, for she possesses this power. Meanwhile, Matteo adores Haribo candies, Rubik’s cubes, and Russian literature. One day, these two individuals cross paths (or rather, collide), and their anonymous bodies become familiar faces, with their piercing blue eyes and thick curls. It takes just a little to intertwine two existences. But how can the same knots be untangled? Against the backdrop of a modern Milan, two stories unfold, not of love but of life.
RACHEL AND RAHA, 16min,. Canada Directed by Nedda Sarshar Rachel and Raha is a short film about second chances and how the people in your past make reappearances at strange moments in your life. Rachel is a grad student living in her parents house in North York and enjoying her summer break when her old best friend (a girl who ghosted her in middle school) moves into her grandparents home across the street.
SING ME TO SLEEP, 25min., USA Directed by Mario Valdivieso “Sing Me To Sleep” follows the story of a young couple by the name of Marc and Julia. Julia has been diagnosed with cancer, and she is at the point where her disease has become terminal. Marc decides to take his dying wife home so they can make the most of their last days together.
Go to the Daily Film Festival Platform http://www.wildsound.ca and sign up for the free 7 day trial to watch a new and original festival every single day.
Back to You, 3min., Chile Directed by Martina Díaz Martínez Liten, a young clay being, takes care of Lillet, her ill mother. One day, when he gets home, Liten watches his mother in distress, he rushes to help and that’s when, while watching her gem-memory, it cracks and falls. Despite trying to force the memory back, Liten realizes the importance of treasuring their time, even if she can’t recall.
Q 1, 6min,. Croatia Directed by Silvano Perozic First picture I named Q by case ,subconsciously or * upconsciously* ,later found in literature that Q is letter Qof in Jewish alphabet ,represent the Sun ,number 19 in Tarot …
A dream in waking life, 3min., Iran Directed by Hossein Moradizadeh A man is walking down the street in the dark and dreaming, suddenly the wind blows.
I have a personal attachment to this problem. I lost my grandfather to smoking hence I’m making the world aware of its ill effects. However, I wanted to message this to the audience using a non traditional method. I feel an ad, doesn’t have the same impact as a short conveying the message through the horror, thriller, and suspense genre.
From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?
It took me about 3 weeks to complete the film.
How would you describe your film in two words!?
Final drag.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?
I think as a first time filmmaker all aspects of filming were new and challenging to me.
What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?
I am truly ecstatic winning the best micro short at the world’s #1 Thriller film festival in the world. More importantly, I think the audience feedback video truly helped me understand how my work can reach people and evoke deep emotions in them.
Deadline to Submit to the Festival for an Automatic Acceptance:
The team was super communicative and helpful. It was really beneficial to get an amazing feedback video!
The communication team of the festival did a marvellous job. They not only ensured that each stage of the festival was well updated with the film makers but also took their extended support in getting audience feedback, which is certainly a good gesture any film maker can offer.
Feeling Great to be part of the festival. Love from India
I made the film “Trans” knowing it would probably not be well accepted but it HAD to be made. Thank you so much for including our film. What you do is amazing and tireless. Everyone should support your efforts.
Thank you, LGBTQ+ Toronto & Los Angeles Film Festival, for screening ’12 angry lesbians’! It was a rare treat to get audience feedback and learn what resonated with people. As a filmmaker one hopes that one’s ideas, and themes get communicated through the script, cinematography, and performances. The feedback I received encouraged me to continue making films. And for that I am forever grateful. Thank you for going the extra mile as a film festival. I wish they all did what you do–not only the feedback– but getting attention for our independent films through youtube and podcasts. You really know how to show support and love for film and filmmakers. Thank you.
This feature film, Catabase First Part – Ad Love, is a sultry feast for the eyes and ears — a testament to both youthful love and desperate obsession. Nary a word is heard from the central characters, but this evocative film does not require speech from them. In fact, this piece is so visually and auditorily captivating, that spoken word by the performers would perhaps be jarringly distracting. Saying that, the soundtrack does provide international text via the soaring lyrics from swooning dramatic operas, which seem to energize the wordless performances even further.
The two actors display such mature composure and gravitas. Their passion for one another oozes out of their pores, both day and night, in health and in illness, as they are cocooned in a love nest of their cramped apartment or in the gorgeous vacation rental near a snowy summit. Long and close up shots — all in black and white — of remarkable facial stillness of the two never seem wooden; you can sense that couple quietly languishing together is what fuels their comfort.
The outdoor cinematography is stunning with shots of soft grassy fields, mountain ranges, long dark highways and stormy cloudbursts. The titled chapters and definitions explaining the changeable state of mind of the couple help to glue the piece together — a piece that uses artistic and emotional sensitivity of the highest level — a revelation of both obsessive love and quiet internal desperation.
