D.C. Shorts post-mortem.

There was no red carpet this year, but almost everything else was bigger and better.

First of all the party was after the first screening instead of before; this was good and bad. Cell-Phone showed in the first screening, so I had a definite conversation-starter with any of the partygoers. However, my favorite part, the Q & A, was quite short because people wanted to Get the Party Started. There was only time for one audience question! After last year's reception, that was quite a let-down.

But to back up. The screening was on Thursday, so the audience wasn't quite primed. My short was the first comedy of the night, so the laughter and so on wasn't as forceful as it would become later in the evening. That's what I'm hoping is the reason anyway. It certainly was well-received, though; that's not just me blowing smoke up my arse. Many people told me how funny it was and so forth.

For me, there were two standouts of the evening: Full Disclosure, about a man who goes on first dates and tells the girl everything wrong about himself, so she's saved the learning process over the course of the relationship; and Bone Mixers, a lovely documentary about a homegrown dominoes club in Silver Spring, which went on to win Best Local Film. (Full Disclosure won Audience Favorite for Thursday's screening. I like to imagine Cell-Phone came in second, based on what the City Paper said.)

(Boy, looking at those film web sites, I realize I really gotta get me a designer...)

A lot of cast members from Hamlet, Revenge! came to see the shorts, which was a wonderful treat. I thank them from the top and bottom of my heart.

I also attended the 7 and 10 P.M. screenings on Friday and the 7 and half the 10 P.M. screenings on Saturday. There was a great documentary on D.C.'s lack of voting representation, followed by a commercial for Jesus Beer, and a really funny short called Zombie-American, starring none other than Ed Helms of The Daily Show. I was way too tired to stay for the entire late Saturday screening, though. I chatted for a good long time with a couple from Vancouver, Canada, whose film was shown at the Canadian Embassy as part of the Canada Films blocks. They felt a little cheated that their film didn't show on the Big Screen at the E Street Cinema, but they were certainly happy to be there. We exchanged screener DVDs at the post-show brunch (where they announced the awards).

No, Cell-Phone didn't win anything. But I already wrote enough about that last year. Besides, being selected from a field of 500+ submissions is still a pretty big deal.

Oh! And today is K's and my wedding anniversary. Twelve years! Amazing. And we still love each other, even!