The importance of being short

They rarely make money and can be hit and miss, so do short films actually matter? Colin Delaney finds out.

Short films. Are they 10 minutes of tightly packed narrative or the derivative art-wank of film students still finding their voice? It can easily go either way with the genre potentially a stepping stone to feature film success or an archive of broken celluloid dreams.

So, what is the point of short films? Do they matter?

John Polson, founder of Tropfest – the long-standing short film festival that will be held across Australia this past weekend with international offshoots from the Middle East to the US  – certainly believes they do.