THROUGHOUT Merseyside, there are many film-makers. Not those who make big Odeon-style movies but people who create interesting short films. As any cinema-goer will tell you, they don't show short films at the cinema any more. Not unless they are advertising something. Occasionally you will find them on television, but the short film, like the short story, seems to be forgotten. It's a shame as films like this can be not only entertaining but a proving ground for the future film makers of the future. Liverpool Film Night offered eight short film-makers on Merseyside an opportunity to show their films. And it was a fascinating evening. Not everything was top drawer. I most confess that Karen Mcleod's Endgame was totally confusing while Adam Baird's Live From the Autopilot - in which two Likely Lads have a conversation with God - was plainly silly. But there was evidence of some intelligence, most notably in Arts Scene Art Seen: Mersey Gaze by Richard Hughes. This was a genuinely funny spoof on pretentious video art, supposedly following the exploits of an Americana artist who arrives in Liverpool to do his own thing. Typically he says of Liverpool: "It has so much reality it is unreal." He films himself kicking a bit of rubbish along the ground. Is is art? Is it stupid? Also very funny was David Franklin's BBC Information Film, a black and white effort with scratchy filming and a chap with a posh voice talking absolute nonsense. Clare Brumby's A Cock and Bull Story telling the tale of The World's Greatest Liar Contest in Cumbria was fascinating but at five minutes a little too short. It seemed an intriguing trailer for a longer film. Hal Lever's animation The Strand, about cloning, looked like a computer game rather than a film while Lakey and Morris's Leakwinks, an attempt at a pop video, was simply uninteresting, both musically and visually. Karen Mcleod's Endgame, a pastiche of anti-war images, was all a bit obvious and, frankly, dull. Anna Taborkska's documentary My Uprising, in which she followed her Polish father around the streets where he was involved in an uprising, was quite delightful. But as she admitted, it was a chance meeting with an old friend which provided the best moment of her intimate film. This was an evening which, nevertheless, showed just what a large range of films are being made in the area, from animation and documentary to drama and pure art video. Maybe not everything was a success but these are films which prove that the talent is here. | 
