Sep 08, 2006  |  By: GREG MARZULLO  | COMMENTS     

Sitting through overly long movies can be enervating, especially when they’re bad. One of the treats of short films, however, is the brevity that leaves you wanting more or happy they’re over so quickly.

Beginning on Friday, Sept. 14, and running through Thursday, Sept. 21, the third annual D.C. Shorts Film Festival will be premiering new works at Landmark’s E Street Cinema, 555 11th St., NW, and at the Canadian Embassy, 501 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.

With 94 films being presented, the festival director, Joe Gann, hopes to double the attendance of last year.

“We sold out all our shows last year,” says Gann, 40 and gay. “We had 2,500 people.”

THE MOVIES RUN the gamut in subject, including a handful of gay-related material, and two of the gay shorts were created by filmmakers living in the D.C. area.

“It Ain’t Natural,” directed by Dean Hamer, is a reflection on the effects of hateful rhetoric espoused by religious leaders in the black community. Hamer uses a headline-making homophobic sermon delivered by D.C.’s Rev. Willie Wilson on July 3, 2005 as the film’s lightning rod.

“When the whole Willie Wilson story came out, it really caught my attention,” says Hamer, a 55 year-old scientist who works at the National Institute of Health on HIV/AIDS research. “Not just because of the remarkable, almost pornographic character of his sermon but also because it speaks to the broader question of discrimination and tolerance and public health in the District.”

Audio clips of Wilson’s speech are interspersed with reactions from local gay residents, thereby providing gay Washingtonians a rebuttal platform.

The film plays at the festival on Saturday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m. at E Street Cinema. Each screening time reflects the start of a series of short films shown collectively.

ON THE OTHER end of the spectrum is what promises to be a campy comedy called “The Lost Item,” directed by Robert Blumenthal. In the film, a woman wakes up after a one-night stand to find the man gone and the requisite condom missing in action.

“She does what any single woman would do?” asks Blumenthal, who is straight. “She calls her gay best friend to help.”

Blumenthal filmed the short in three days at his sister’s condominium in New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. The gay best friend is played by local gay actor Rick Hammerly, winner of the 2003 Helen Hayes award for his portrayal of the transsexual rock star Hedwig in Signature Theater’s production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

“The Lost Item” is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 16 at 10 p.m.

Other films of gay interest are “Attack of the Bride Monster,” showing on Saturday, Sept. 16, at 1 p.m.; “Dammi il La,” Friday, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m.; “Available Men,” Saturday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m. and “Dirty Mary,” Saturday, Sept. 16, at 10 p.m.

With the exception of “Scattering Eden,” which shows at the Canadian Embassy on Saturday, Sept. 16, at 11 a.m., all shows occur at E Street Cinema.

Tickets for individual shows, most of which are presented at E Street Cinema, are $12. The All-Access Pass costs $100 and includes entrance to all screenings, a ticket to the opening night party at Drinx restaurant, 601 F St., NW, entrance to the screenings at the Canadian embassy on Sept. 16 and a ticket to the filmmaker’s brunch on Sunday, Sept. 17, at Clyde’s, 707 7th St., NW.

The $150 Priority All-Access Pass includes all the benefits listed above plus reserved seating at all of the screenings, entrance into the LunaFest benefit screening on Thursday, Sept. 21, a special evening of women’s short films sponsored by Luna health bars, and entrance to the “Best of” screenings, a series of the festival’s top flicks.