Letters

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Shorts Program 7 - Student Shorts. From mullet-wearing, air-guitar gangs to a Palestinian suicide bomber, this yearÕs Student Shorts program covers a wide range of human experience. Whimsical stories like a lonely man trying to appear in as many photos as possible and a woman using balloons to send letters are balanced by tragic accounts of lynching, brothers separated in Vietnam and a homeless man in San FranciscoÕs Tenderloin. Everyday characters like an old barber trying not to lose his only customer are followed by a disembodied cartoon head and a modern day Prometheus, who is executed every day of his life. Even more varied than the stories themselves are the approaches each filmmaker takes in telling them. What binds the tales is a refusal to rehash the past - whether theyÕre striving for social change, or just finding a new way to make people laugh. Reviewed by Jason Martin