Short Cuts Canada Programme 2 had a more sombre tone than the other shorts programmes I?d seen, but each of the films was incredible, affecting, and fit perfectly with the rest. Truly, this year?s shorts programmers deserve kudos for their work. When TIFF comes to an end for another year (later tonight), and we all go back to our regular movie watching habits, I urge you all to take any opportunity you can to see more shorts. They may not come to the theatres as often as features, but if this festival has taught me anything it?s that they are absolutely worth seeking out. Here are a few highlights from the Q&A at Programme 2?s premiere on Thursday.

Dust Bowl Ha Ha! is a beautiful portrait of small town sorrow and self-preservation, focusing on a man who struggles to keep hope alive after the factory in his small Quebec town closes. Director Sébastien Pilote was asked whether he had a personal connection to the tale, and answered ?No, but my father played in the film, but a small role, because he brought the snowmobile, so he was the only one who could jump the snowmobile onto the pickup.?

Boar Attack is a charming and funny animated film that uses hand-drawn sketches and translucent watercolours to tell the tale of a cautious man?s worry that his father (a ballerina) has been attacked by a boar in the woods. Director Jay White was asked ?the boar in the woods, where did that come from?? and responded ?I was living in Berlin for a year working on an animated series and I liked to go to the bush a lot, so I asked some people at the studio what if I go there are there snakes, or bears. And they said well, there are wild pigs. And I asked what they could do and they said well, they run really fast they can run into you or break your legs. And I thought in Canada a grizzly can take your head off, I think I can handle a pig.?

Dada Dum director Britt Randle was asked about the sets in his expressionistic and surreal black & white short. He said ?It?s all sets I made from insulation and foam core from Home Depot. It was all in sections so that we could kind of change things around to make different rooms and hallways, so it was in six foot sections. So it was a lot of glue and foam core.?

For Alanis Obomsawin, director of the touching documentary Gene Boy Came Home, about a native Canadian Vietnam vet, the question was about her subject Gene, who died shortly after filming concluded. She replied ?When we did the last shoot, I called him for about a week beforehand, and he wasn?t answering. So I wondered if perhaps he went away somewhere. Then I went to his house and asked what?s happening, and he said oh, I?ve been sick and just staying in bed ? a then week later he went to the hospital. I know he had liver problems, and colon problems, I don?t know what else. It was quite a shock. He?d been having lots of problems obviously, but we just didn?t expect it.?

Four Walls is a tough and honest look at how female prisoners from different walks of life are treated in Iran. Director Raha Shirazi talked about the incredible performances her actors gave, saying ?well I guess the biggest challenge was trying to shoot the film in Toronto and trying to play it for Iran, so we built the set and I was lucky enough to have amazing, amazing actors. It took three, four months to find them. But once we did, it was just all about them, trying to put them in a confined space and allow them to play off each other. And for all of us there is some kind of relation, in one way or another we all know what that feels like, so yeah. They were amazing.?

Can You Wave Bye Bye?, a difficult film about a woman?s struggle with post-partum depression, gave director Sarah Galea-Davis the opportunity to adapt a short story she read some years ago. She said of the tale ?I really loved the story. I?d never encountered a character like that before in fiction, and I thought it was a really brave story. I knew I wanted to somehow translate that character to film. I also got really lucky because I found a really good actress who?d given birth about six months before the shoot. So, she has a baby and y?know, the baby in the film was only about two and a half months old, but she knew what it was to be a mother.?

Programmer Alex Rogalski jumped in to say ?24 frames per second, and the film is 17 minutes long. So, 24 frames per second, 60 frames per minute for 17 minutes. Four years doesn?t seem that long.?

However, what the animators didn?t mention when talking about their remarkable puppets is that an entirely new process was created for this film which unnervingly integrated real human eyes into individual puppets? faces, giving them an ability to express emotion that goes beyond anything one could expect from a puppet.