Mixed-breed dog is star of 29-Second Film Festival winner

Posted on Mar 20, 2008 By Julia Szabo Comments (1)

There are short films and really, really short films. As reported in the Kansas City Star, the winners of the paper's 29-Second Film Festival have been announced, and Best Drama honors went to a mini-movie called "Canine Clarity."

"Joe Gleason's existential portrait of man and dog might not have been the best film of the bunch," wrote Steve Paul in the Star, "but it had a Zenlike vision, an edgy style and genuine emotional content."  

The film is a dream sequence that features a dog guru speaking telepathically with his human disciple. In it, we detect echoes of a 1975 cult classic of the canine cinema: "A Boy and His Dog," which happens to be in the FetchDog Top 20.

Except this film is decidedly less dark than "A Boy and His Dog" - and about 89 minutes shorter.  

As in the earlier, longer, more famous film, the dog star of "Canine Clarity" is a senior mutt. Half pit bull and half Sheltie, with different-colored eyes, one of them blue, like David Bowie ("which made it avant-garde," Gleason explains), her name is Gabbi, she belongs to one of Gleason's friends, and she's "a fantastic animal."

Not only is 7-year-old Gabbi "the most friendly dog anybody could meet," says Gleason, whose family owns a video production company outside Kansas City, she also takes direction well.

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