No, despite my programming for the Worldwide Short Film Festival I have no clue whatsoever which films have the inside track on taking home the official prizes and awards.  But depite it being a mere two days into the festival as I type this I am quite certain which films will ultimately win the prize of my heart.  And aww, isn't that sweet.  Well, sort of.  Except one of the films involves a dinner party in which the patrons gorge themselves on exotic animal flesh while the second follows a woman from suicide to cremation.  That I'm falling in love with odd little films is nothing new.  That happens all the time.  That both happen to be Canadian, however, is pretty notable and that both actually come from the same Quebecois art collective is positively shocking.

The artists in question operate as the Phi Group, a collection of talent that involves the likes of Robert Lepage - surely one of Canada's national treasures.  The films?  Denis Villeneuve's Next Floor and Pedro Pires' Danse Macabre. 

Really, if I'd been paying better attention, I'd have spotted the Villeneuve film long ago.  Next Floor won best short at International Critics' Week in Cannes 2008, a major prize - a hugely major prize, actually - that went largely uncommented on throughout English Canada, as did the fact that Villeneuve's most recent feature Polytechnique played to much acclaim at Directors' Fortnight in Cannes this year.  Well, wake up, people, Villeneuve is the real thing and despite being largely ignored at home - at least outside of Quebec - he's arguably the most respected Canadian director abroad right now.  And for good reason.  Next Floor is the sort of lushly designed, razor sharp, deeply absurd satire that you'd have expected from Terry Gilliam of Jean-Pierre Jeunet at their peak.  It is richly detailed, beautifully performed and note perfect in its attention to detail and deserves absolutely ever ounce of attention it has and will continue to receive.  It's a really, really good film.

Honestly, Next Floor was also the very first film to officially screen at Worldwide Shorts and at the end of the screening I though it would be pretty much impossible to beat.  Enter Danse Macabre, a film I noticed first because some clever soul had left a stack of very striking flyers next to an equally striking stack of swag for Next Floor.  Then I noticed the Phi logo and realized that Danse was backed by the same people who had produced Next Floor.  Then I noticed that the aforementioned Robert Lepage was credited with the concept behind the film.  Then I immediately hauled ass to the screening room to get a look at the film as early as humanly possible.  And, once I was done with that, I scraped my jaw off the floor and stopped trying to sort out how a company as young as Phi had managed to create two such impeccable, impressive works with their very first two forays into film and - purely by coincidence - ended up running into director Pedro Pires at a festival event and struggling not to embarass myself while explaining to him how I felt about his film.

So there you have it. In a festival that received just a shade under four thousand submissions to the program my favorite two come from right here at home. Suddenly it's good to be Canadian.