The Love Hurts Shorts Programme (90 min) examines life’s tragedies and triumphs, from interpersonal relationships to the relationship between humans and their environment.

Parachute (6 min), a French and Canadian co-production that has the feel of a preposterous and droll commercial, kicks things off. Those are some kind of amazing helmets.

You’ll have to decide for yourself if Off Route 2 (11 min) is either too ironic for its own good, or some kind of oddly fascinating masterpiece of a short. Much of the first half of the Canadian film contemplates the disquiet after a car has ended upside-down on a snow-covered country road in the wilderness. The mid-day winter sun shines a spotlight on creatures of the forest, some of whom regarding the car and its lone passenger, a 30-ish woman with an obviously broken arm. Every minute is like another eternity without any help arriving. Then, the firefighters arrive. They guide the woman through the rescue. And then? The film makes an ironic choice in a slow reveal that I suppose is meant as juxtaposition to the earlier scene, but I’m mixed about what it amounts to. It is as fascinating a short you’ll see this week, though.

Another dead-of-winter short follows in Under (23 min), with enough plot to be made into a compelling feature. Sydney and her fiance Tom have made a pact to give up the boozin’ and druggin’ on a cold turkey getaway to a winter cabin. In the rural outback, they get into a fight over a hot drink with rum that a local shop-owner has offered them. Their own personal issues give way to an emergency out in the cold that leaves them cut-off from the rest of the world. They went out there for love’s sake, but now they’re out there trying to survive. The claustrophobic space that takes up the second half of the picture does a convincing job of making us feel like we’re running out of oxygen ourselves. I favored my throat with my hand more than once during that sequence.

Moving Stories (7 min), out of Belgium, is a short that soars literally as well as figuratively as culled footage of a great jetliner floats above the clouds, tens of thousands of feet up in the air. I was reminded of dreams I’ve had where I was flying, soaring, floating along. Evgueni Galperine‘s wonderful score reminds me that I have failed to report too much on the overwhelmingly great music in almost every single short so far. The music here and that flying plane create a wonderful atmosphere, as do the soft voices of two lovers we hear intermittently throughout. Gorgeous.

Tuesday (Mardi) (7 min) begins with a French Canadian college couple deciding to skip class, stay at home, lie in bed, slack, and make out. By its conclusion, a room filled with a few of their friends are having to deal with the breaking news story of a tragedy that has just hit their campus.

With cinematography as striking as the Canadian short Trotteur in the Opening Gala, Remember Me My Ghost (17 min), shot in beautiful black & white, examines the demolition of a public housing project complex in a poor Dublin, Ireland neighborhood. The soundtrack is filled with the life story of one woman’s experience there, living in poverty with an abusive husband and eventually as a single mom trying to fight her way out. It’s a bleak, honest, tough portrait of a hard woman from an even harder place. It’s sad and spellbinding, perhaps the best in this program of 8 shorts.

Life and Stuff (4 min) is the most visually delightful selection of this set in another of the wonderful stop-motion animationshorts playing this week. The movie races through the major milestones of one man’s life, hurtling forward passed expectations and regrets, in a way that is best-suited to animation.

The Master Cleanse (15 min) plays like a sitcom as Kelly and Scott take up their bi-annual two-week cleanse. You know the one. The kind introduced to you by a few of those hippie art kids in college with lemon juice and cayenne pepper. The flick sees them through the two weeks as they begin to tear each other part in a droll send-up of that strange elixir and the people who go through with it.

- MovieJay

Check out our coverage of the WorldWide Short Film Festival:

- A Break-Down The ‘Who’s Your Dada?’ Programme
- MovieJay Reviews The Opening Night Gala: Winners From Around the World
- The @xvrpop Ultimate Worldwide Short Film Fest Preview
- The CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival’s Screenplay $50,000 Giveaway is Back!