Selected Shorts: Louis Black Presents Henry Griffin’s TORTURED BY JOY

Our ongoing Selected Shorts series continues here with a choice from AFS Board Member, Austin Chronicle Editor and Austin film legend Louis Black:

The first time I was shown Henry Griffin’s 2004 short film narrated by John Lurie was by the always brilliant Nicky Katt in one of the only 30 houses actually on the beach in LaJolla. As the waves crashed translucent, he had rearranged the house, lit an army of candles, re-wired the media center and defrosted all the food in my friend’s refrigerator but all paled in comparrison to this stunning somewhat punk-romantic loose homage to Chris Marker’s seminal La Jetee. All done with still photos with only a few seconds total of action I quickly sent Jonathan Demme a copy, he raved about it, and have subsequently shown my favorite short film of the last decade to everyone I can force to watch it, many of whom asked for a copy. When I finally met the wonderous and multi-talented Griffin I asked why he hadn’t submitted his masterpiece to SXSW. He said that he had, it had been rejected. WATCH THIS FILM (except if you haven’t seen La Jetee, because you should not allow any more of your life to pass without having seen it).

Watch TORTURED BY JOY here.