There are some incredible short films here. Please read the capsules below:

1. Madre. Spain. 19 minutes that grip you. Single mother takes a phone call from her son, who is vacationing with her estranged ex husband somewhere in Spain or France. What becomes apparent, is that the boy is alone, on a beach, and in a potentially dangerous situation. Share the panic that is every mothers worst nightmare. 7.5

2. Fauve. French Canadian. 17 minutes telling the story of two young boys, best friends, one upping each other at every turn in a child’s game to earn points. When they visit a open mine, things quickly become a battle against the mine, not each other. 8.0

3. Marguerite. A reflective and bittersweet short from French Canada. 19 minutes. A nearing end of life woman, and her care giver develop a very strong friendship, where truths and a missed love from her past are explored. It will have special meaning to anyone with an aging mother. 8.0

4. Detainment. Ireland. This is a really difficult to watch 30 minutes, in the retelling of a true story of two 10 year old boys who in Liverpool abduct and kill a 2 year old James Bulger. I vaguely remembered the story, but suspect my British friends will know this extremely well. It is a uniquely disturbing story, which most of the world would withdraw in horror to hear what these previously just mischievous boys were capable of. It is, I believe, something that even the most learned psychologists could not possibly rationalize. Google the story. Not without controversy, and legal and human rights challenges, the boys were tried as adults, and were the youngest people ever to be convicted of murder. 8.5

5. Skin. USA. 20 minutes. A redneck’s son in small town USA smiles innocently at a black man in the check out line in a grocery store, which puts the father into an ignorant rage, and the ensuing beating of the black man within an inch of his life by the father and a gang, in front of his family. Retribution isn’t far away, and it is shocking. To me, it isn’t a revenge story however, it is a story that should worry both sides of the equation. 8.0.