Twisted Valentine’s Day-Themed Short Independent Films

These short films are not your ordinary romantic fare, both modern variations on the idea of Cupid the arrow-slinging Roman god of “desire, affection and erotic love.” And both films featured on the PBS indie film series Image Makers.

“My name’s Cupid. And I’m an alcoholic.” says the semi-competent-marksman narrator of “Shooting Blanks” by Irish filmmaker Liam Gavin. You can imagine, things don’t go smoothly. Gavin has a couple other short films here.

Luke Matheny‘s “God of Love” won the 2011 “Best-Live Action Short” Academy Award. This is the trailer, he hasn’t put the whole film online. I love how the trailer writeup was never updated and only says that it was nominated for an Oscar. See the whole film if you can find it, it’s great!

Here’s a video of writer, director star of the film Matheny’s memorable Oscar acceptance speech. He jokes about his hair and, of course, thanks his mom. Matheny has been involved in a few other short films since his win, but no sign yet of a feature film.

Luke-Matheny-HD01E

Photo by Jean-Pavlovich Kitano

mikl-em
Mikl-em

Actor, nerd, poet, producer, writer mikl-em made his name short so you wouldn't have to. In addition to his blog you can find his writing in "Hi Fructose" magazine and witness him almost life-sized in various plays at The Dark Room Theater in SF's Mission district.

He tends to write about theater, humor, San Francisco culture and history, and stuff that's just plain weird. He thanks Scott for sharing the keys to the Laughing Squid virtual HQ and promises to uphold whatever it is that the mirthful cephalopod would prefer to be uplifted.