So with the opening night done and dusted, Aesthetica Film Festival was fully underway. I came to day two of the festival, Friday, with hesitation as I was thoroughly overwhelmed by the staggering amount of films that were on offer to watch. When you’ve never been to a film festival before, approaching one with 200 films and 15 venues it’s a little difficult to know where to begin. Thriller or Comedy? Drama or Experimental? In the end I decided to start with familiarity, both in venue and film genre, and settled down to watch a collection of thrillers at City Screen.
The audience size in the Basement was modest with a few people ducking in and out here and there, which was a shame for the quality of the shorts which were shown. Each short I watched oozed professionalism for the most part, with sharp editing, quick dialogue and varying colour grading keeping the films fresh. I worried that, as films are put on by category, that they would all blend into each other and my enthusiasm would wane, but the ordering was good enough that each film was substantially different from the last.
The showing opened with Perfect by Anya Camilleri, director of (admittedly terrible) Incubus, a short which revolved around a killer estate agent, reminiscent of American Psycho. This was followed by the snappy 4 minute Sinkhole in which a job interview takes a bizarre turn which was visually arresting and sleek if not a little hard to decipher. Revealing Diary by the Guerrier Brothers captured my 
interest with a zany plot surrounding a self help book with a dark twist, and was followed by the The Shot which had some great ideas and was shot in a location which lent itself beautifully to the film. However, the real highlight here for me was the Swedish film, the Caretaker, by Martin Ahlin in which a caretaker (believe it or not) attends to what appears to be an abandoned school, with some unexpected results. Although there wasn’t really any new ideas here, the atmosphere created by the thudding soundtrack and dark, dank corridors was genuinely intense and so well put together.
After that section was done, before heading over to St William’s College for a spot of comedy, I thought I’d stay to quickly watch one more film. This was Scarecrow by York University’s alumni James Arden, which was made independently earlier this year on little to no budget. The budget was noticeably lower than the predecessors mentioned above. However, credit must therefore go to Arden’s film-making ability, as it completely held it’s own with a haunting atmosphere created by creepy imagery, fantastic colour grading and an unsettling discordant soundtrack.
One of my favourite aspects of the festival so far has definitely been the ability to watch great film inside beautiful, old buildings drenched in history. The size of the audience at St Williams was much larger, but they seemed less receptive to comedy and ‘doing the laughing’. There was a lot of stony faces to be seen, as if someone had just made a terrible politically incorrect joke before I arrived. Or maybe it was just me they weren’t happy to see. Either way, I thought it looked as if it was going to be a tough crowd to please.
There were a few films which fell completely flat or induced a few chuckles before meandering off into mediocrity, but I endured, hoping for some hidden comedy gems. And there were. The audience responded best to the shorter, more punchier offerings, 
such as the 2 minute long Pvt. Crane, although there was much rip-roaring during the popularPhotoshopping. My personal favourite was definitely the French Canadian Beep Beep (Bip Bip) which, although very slapstick and silly in nature, worked perfectly. It follows a man who wants to fall asleep with his girlfriend, but is irritated by her beeping watch which won’t turn off. The watch stops beeping, but later turns into a full on Dubstep, foam party. I imagine that watch would become somewhat inconvenient once the novelty of having constant raves and foam parties wears off.
After leaving St Williams College and watching film in such a historic place, I ditched my student uptightness and felt inclined to leave a donation for the general upkeep of the building, which I barely do. Mind, it still couldn’t have affected me too much, as it was just a few pennies.
With such a wide variety of great films to choose from, the main thing this day really accomplished was give me a taster of what films are available, and built my anticipation for watching more over the course of the weekend.