York is soon to be turned into a series of screens for an international festival of short films, reports Charles Hutchinson

A SERIAL killer attempts to seduce a victim; a young couple’s marriage hilariously hits the rocks during a weekend in the country; a high-wire artist steps out high above the streets of a Glasgow estate.

These are the themes of three of the 175 short films that will be screened over four days at 15 locations in York from next Thursday as part of the city’s first boutique international film festival.

A judging panel from York art and culture magazine Aesthetica chose the 175 films – submitted from 30 countries – from 1,000 that were under consideration for the Aesthetica Short Film Festival.

They include dramas such as Silent Things, in which the friendship between an autistic man and woman is tested; thrillers including The Romantic Killer, wherein a serial killer seduces a victim; comedy films, such as Tooty’s Wedding, a tale of a young couple’s marriage going wrong during a weekend wedding in the country; and art/experimental films, among them Catherine Yass’s High Wire.

The festival’s run from next Thursday to Sunday will include music videos, documentaries, short family films and adult animation too together with talks and masterclasses.

Cherie Federico, the founder and director of Aesthetica magazine who is also directing the film festival, said the aim was to bring new and innovative independent digital cinema to York, using the city’s public and hidden spaces for screenings as an alternative to the conventional big screen.

“Every city has its own pace and in York the history influences that considerably,” says Cherie, who moved to York from New York nine years ago to study for a Masters degree in English contemporary literature and has never left.

“To be in a city that is so phenomenally interesting and steeped in history, it’s just the perfect match for putting on a wide-scale film festival, bringing people into these places, not only visitors, but also people who live here, who may not normally step inside places like Barley Hall or the Mansion House.”

Under the banner of Explore York, Experience Film, films will be shown at Barley Hall, the Mansion House, Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, Micklegate Bar Museum, the De Grey Rooms, York Art Gallery and the Yorkshire Museum.

York St John University, City Screen, DIG, Bar Lane Studios, the According To McGee gallery, Thirteen Thirty One bar and National Railway Museum will play host to screenings too. The 15th location, the ASFF Festival Hub, will be based at Visit York, where any festival queries can be answered.

“Regionally, we live in an area that has a number of really successful film festivals – Leeds International Film Festival, which is now 25 years old; Bradford International Film Festival; the Sheffield documentary festival; Glimmer in Hull, Mango in Bradford – but obviously York has never had a city-wide film festival,” says Cherie, who runs Aesthetica with six staff from a new office in the refurbished De Grey House.

“One of the most interesting aspects, when creating this festival, has been assembling the range of venues, pulling together the city’s architectural and historical resources.

“We hope that festival-goers will leave with a greater awareness and appreciation both for independent film and the centuries of history in York.”

The festival builds on Aesthetica magazine’s existing commitment to film. “We’ve always had a dedicated film section in the magazine, though our main focus has been on visual art,” says Cherie. “We generally do something on the film industry, film festivals or partnerships between film makers and musicians, and this led to us organising a weekend film course with the Raindance Film Festival.

“Then last year, we ran the Aesthetica Short Film Competition, for which we had 1,000 entries and arranged screenings at five film festivals. We chose 13 films for the DVD that went round the festivals.”

The dilemma of so many films, but so few chances to show them, set Cherie thinking in summer 2010 as she travelled back from addressing the Soho Short Film Festival.

“On the train journey, I was mulling over how I have a privileged position, having access to these films, and how York had the venues to screen them, so I decided to hold a film festival,” she says.

A team of 14 is working on the festival, eight of them freelances, the rest being Aesthetica staff members, who formed the panel overseen by Cherie. None of the films came from last year’s competition, and amazingly Cherie has seen most of the 2011 festival entries and certainly all 175 that made the final festival programme. “I’m not going to put on a film that I’ve not seen as we want quality assurance, rather than showing any old thing,” she says.

The full programme will be complemented by a series of talks, masterclasses and question-and-answer sessions with film industry insiders, including York film director and screenwriter Mark Herman; documentary film maker Saeed Taji Farouky; Alex Williams, from Escape Studios’ CGI design studio; Slumdog Millionaire associate producer Ivana MacKinnon; The Trouble With Girls film star turned film maker Marlyn Mason; SXSW film shorts programmer Claudette Godfrey; and Susie Wright, senior commissioner for Channel 4.

Now comes your part: “We do need people to support the festival,” says Cherie. “It needs a lot of nerve to mount and I’d like 1,000 people to participate over the four days.”

• Aesthetica Short Film Festival runs from November 3 to 6, beginning with a launch night at City Screen. The full programme is available from asff.co.uk. A festival season ticket costs £20; a day pass is £12; please note, there will no tickets for individual films.