The Ten-Second Auteur

Perhaps you’ve lived through this: St. Anthony Main’s Fourth of July fireworks have just wrapped up, and there’s only one thing left to do—deal with gridlock. If you love fireworks and hate traffic, there is another option. For the third year running, tiki torches and a projector transform the outside of the Soap Factory gallery—located near the Stone Arch Bridge—into an open-air cinema for the Ten Second Film Fest.

OK, it’s not Cannes—but it’s free. The films are shot with digital cameras, cell phones, and similar technologies. No editing is allowed, and submissions are taken by e-mail. The idea came about a few years ago when festival coordinator Chris Pennington started playing around with the video function on his digital camera. Figuring others must be doing the same, he got the Soap Factory to help put out a call for submissions. A couple of hundred videos were submitted the first year, and 350 in the second.

The point is to “make normal people make art in a way that’s inclusive and easy,” Pennington says. “The whole idea is that you could just fiddle with the camera and e-mail it to us. It’s stupidly simple.”

The end results fall somewhere between America’s Funniest Home Videos rejects and the avant-garde work of Stan Brakhage—beautiful optical illusions and imagery, stupid pet tricks, odd jokes, short dramas, you name it. “It’s just goofy,” Pennington says. “It’s not a film festival you can take too seriously.” And if you try, Pennington will simply point you to the beer keg.

“Beer is a very important part,” he says. “We want everyone to be involved, and beer kind of helps with that.” July 4. Soap Factory, 518 SE 2nd St., Mpls.

Bill Snyder writes about music and film for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.