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Why aren't short films more popular?

It's the World Wide Short Film Festival here in Toronto and I attended a screening last night of Official Selection 5 What You See is Not What You Get. Overall the quality was good, some were better then others with the top ones in my opinion being Top Girl, The Kinda Surtra and Section 44 - all very different but all very good. But the screening wasn't even half full. Now I must admit that this is my first time attending the festival so I have no idea if this is the norm but I have attended the shorts program at TIFF and they were packed. Is it just that TIFF is bigger and can attract more viewers? I enjoyed the shorts last night more than I did the ones at TIFF so I don't think it's a quality issue. Or is it just that people aren't that interested in watching shorts? As someone who is making some short films now this question intrigues me.

I think overall the film industry could do more to promote the short medium. When I was in Ireland the Irish Film Institute would couple a feature and a short together at every screening and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Perhaps we could start that here, sort of like what they do at festivals but do it for every film.