Short but inspiring. I saw twelve movies last weekend. No, I didn't spend twenty-four hours in front of a theatre screen but I did attend two cinema events featuring all the Academy Award nominees in the short film category for 2009. It was four hours of solid entertainment.

A Russian film - simply drawn and animated called Lavatory Love told the story of a washroom attendant who is surprised when flowers appear at her workstation from a secret admirer. The movie made you laugh but it also made you think about what it might be like to have a job in the service industry that is solitary and repetitive. Perhaps the menial workers we tend to ignore and take for granted are actually longing for someone to notice them. Lavatory Love inspired me to smile more often at the women who look after the public washrooms here in Hong Kong.

The popular clay animation characters Wallace and Gromit were featured in a cartoon called Loaf and Death. It's a comedy/ murder mystery showcasing Wallace and Gromit's wild and wacky inventions. I was inspired when I learned that the Wallace and Gromit cartoon makers have worked together with education officials to create a series of innovative design lesson plans for school children in Great Britain. The filmmakers offer prizes to students who come up with the most unique and useful inventions.

Three of the other short films were inspiring and thought provoking. New Boy showed what happened to a young African refugee on his first day at school in Ireland. The Pig was a film from Copenhagen. It documented the conflict between a Muslim man and a Danish woman whose fathers were sharing a hospital room. Toyland told the story of a German woman who daringly saves the life of her Jewish neighbors' son during the Holocaust.

I would be in complete agreement with the Oscar voters who chose the inspiring Smile Pinki as the best short film of the year. It tells the true story of children in India who are given free surgeries to correct cleft palates. The movie focuses in particular on the situation of a little girl named Pinki. We see what her life was like before the surgery and we visit her six months after and realize how a simple operation totally changes her world. Pinki's surgery is only one of thousands performed each year by a charity called Smile Train. It tries to help the 35,000 children who are born annually in India with cleft palates. Most of these children are condemned to lives of ridicule and hardship because of their medical condition. They can't go to school, get a job and can't marry. Smile Train is an American charity that provides free medical equipment, free medical training and on going support to nurses and doctors in 75 different countries. As a result of Smile Train's efforts over 500,000 free corrective surgeries have been performed on children in the last ten years. Cleft surgery takes 45 minutes and usually costs less than $250 US. It is almost always 100% successful. Check this movie out. The story will warm your heart.




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