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Alberta Arts Days is Sep 17-19 and we have a 52-minute PG-rated package called Digging the Arts (FREE ADMISSION) that we'll be screening at Second Street Theatre as part of the weekend celebration at 7 pm on Fri, Sat, and Sun evenings, and at 1:00 pm on Sat and Sun afternoons. It contains films from the 2009 and 2010 Reel Shorts Film Festivals that feature the arts and how their surprising effects can be found anywhere and everywhere. It starts with the oldest art form – storytelling – as illustrated in Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty, screened with the kind permission of Network Ireland Television and Brown Bag Productions, and then proceeds through examples of music (Live Music, The Passenger, and The Necktie), visual art (Post-It Love), and dance (Pretty Big Dig) before finishing with a story about filmmaking (The Climactic Death of Dark Ninja), the art form that can incorporate all the others. The films are:

• Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, Director Nicky Phelan, Ireland, 2008 (6 minutes) - A seemingly sweet old lady tells her version of Sleeping Beauty to her terrified granddaughter in this 2010 Oscar-nominated animated gem
• Live Music, Director Yair Landau, USA, 2009 (6 minutes) - A Rock ‘n’ Roll Guitar falls in love with the Violin of his dreams
• Post-It Love, Co-Writers/Co-Directors Simon Atkinson and Adam Townley, UK, 2008 (4 minutes) - Too shy to talk to each other, a young couple find a unique way to show their love for each other
• The Passenger, Writer/Director/Producer/Editor Chris Jones, Australia, 2006 (7 minutes) - A timid bookworm shares the bus with a passenger who's strangely affected by music in this 2007 Oscar-nominated tour de force which took the filmmaker 8 years to make by himself
• Pretty Big Dig, Director/Producer/Choreographer/Editor Anne Troake, Canada, 2003 (4 minutes) - Whimsical and profound, this ballet with backhoes melds classical music and heavy machinery
• The Necktie, Writer/Director/Animator Jean-François Lévesque, Canada, 2008 (12 minutes) - Fleeing a meaningless job in the corporate world, a middle-aged office worker rediscovers the joy of life through an old accordion
• The Climactic Death of Dark Ninja, Writer/Director Peter Craig, USA, 2004 (13 minutes) - With only one chance to get the final shot of his ninja film, a young director’s preparations all hinge on what happens after he yells “Action”