The 7 shorts it the Date Night Programme examine romance in all its quirkiness, from book covers who tell their own stories late at night to what really goes on after the credits of a movie that has just ended “happily ever after”, or so we think.

Lunch Date (11 min) is a charming British dramedy about a young woman waiting for her date to show up at the restaurant when his 14 yr-old brother arrives instead, sent by his older brother to break up with her.

Rhinos (17 min) is an unlikely Irish dramedy that finally wins you over with Thomas, a Dubliner, and Ingrid, a German, meeting cute one afternoon on a park bench and then hanging out the rest of that afternoon barely understanding a word between them.

Co-directors Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn deliver a rather explicitly weird but stylish stop-motion animation piece in To Die By Your Side (6 min), which sees characters from major works of fiction involved in their own bizarre stories once their bookstore owner departs for the evening.

Cafe Regular, Cairo (11 min) considers a young adult couple examining where their relationship is and where it’s going now that they’re approaching their two-year. She wants to have sex and he keeps trying to talk the both of them out of it in this intriguing and intelligent scene that would be interesting as a feature.

We Refuse to Be Cold (8 min) is quite literally a pact a young Montreal couple makes in this experimental short about themes of promises kept and broken.

I Could’ve Been a Hooker (24 min) is the best in this bunch, a dark French dramedy about a 30ish woman, her pair of hedge clippers, and the panic attack she has in public that ends with an overnight stay at a stranger’s house, a 40-something man. In theory, this is a totally preposterous situation, but the writing, direction and acting pull us along and we find ourselves engrossed by the film’s open-ended conclusion. This stuff reminded me of Haneke, but with a wink to the audience.

After the Credits (15 min) is a droll Australian short about a young man who flees his own wedding in order to profess his love to a woman about to board a plane out of town. Everything goes swimmingly until the credits are done rolling and the woman has to try to get her fare back while the man is raking up a huge taxi bill because he told the driver to keep the meter running. And then they’ve got to figure out their happily-ever-after arrangement as the woman had left her job to move somewhere else. But they’ll figure it all out, right?

- Moviejay

Check out our coverage of the WorldWide Short Film Festival:

- Xavierpop Breaks Down the Popular ‘Scene Not Herd’ Programme
- Xavierpop Reviews The ‘Short Dramatic Films” Programme
- MovieJay Really Enjoys The ‘Celebrity Shorts’ Programme
- Douglas Breaks Down The ‘X-Ray Spex’ Programme
- MovieJay Reviews The ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ Programme
- Now Onto The ‘Homeland Security’ Programme
- Xavierpop Takes On The ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ Programme
- MovieJay Reviews The “All Tomorrow’s Parties” Programme
- Douglas Godhino Reviews The ‘Superfans’ Programme
- Xavierpop Takes on The “Creative Control” Programme
- MovieJay Reviews the “War, What Is It Good For?” Programme
- MovieJay Reviews ‘The Family Compact” Programme
- Next Up A Look At the ‘Iron Ladies’ Programme
- Xavierpop Covers ‘The Love Hurts’ Official Selection
- 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!