The Long and the Short of it.

The problem I have with a lot of film funding bodies is they appear to assume that, if you are interested in making short films, you must be a novice.  So increasingly, funding is offered on the proviso that the filmmakers are trained.  Don't get me wrong, this is a great thing if... you are a novice or new filmmaker.   Now that makes me sound arrogant, but I'm not. As far as I'm concerned, life = learning.  The day I stop learning something, will be the day I die.  My point however, is this. If you are not a new/novice filmmaker, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of funding opportunities out there.

The reason for that is down to another assumption that funding bodies seem to have - although I guess this is not intentional - is that short films are just a testing ground on the way to bigger things, that they are some sort of limbo land filmmakers endure while they wait to be given their chance at a feature.  For me, film-making is film-making regardless of length.  They are made using the same set of ingredients, just in different portions.

Short films are a valuable cultural asset unto themselves.  They should not be looked down on as a lesser art because they are short.   That's length-ism!