KARACHI, April 27: The penultimate day of the European Short Film Festival at the Alliance Francaise Karachi on Saturday was marked by films that highlighted the cultural diversity in Europe observed through travelling.

The first set of short films was called Lost in Europe and it commenced with Latvia’s ‘Try On’ directed by Aleksandrs Rusevics. It is a touching tale of an over-the-hill woman who works at a railway station. Her life transforms as one day she chances upon a bag left on a bench by a young woman. The bag has shoes in it which the old woman tries them on. This reminds her of her younger days when she may have dreamt about a lot of things. The fact that the film did not have any dialogue made it all the more charming.

‘Miracles in Armenia’ directed by Blerta Basholli interestingly brings together some individuals as a war in the Karbakh region takes its toll. They come from different backgrounds but converge at a certain place where the effects of war show their ‘miraculous’ side.

Director Yulia Ruditskaya’s ‘Let’s be Belarusian’ traces the history of Belarus from the time when man descended on earth to 1991. It is an animated movie narrated in the form of a peppy song.

Estonian film ‘Bibendum’ helmed by Augustas Liiv is about an English truck driver Macky’s journey to Russia. He is all by himself and has the Michelin Man (a kind of snowman replica) as his sole co-traveller. The tale changes course when the Michelin man is stolen by a girl when Macky stops at a petrol station after being robbed. The girl wants to cross the border with his help but fails to do so.

Finland’s film ‘The Last Tour’, directed by Wille Hyvonen, is a sensitive story of a sixty-plus bus driver by the name of Seppo who takes visitors on a guided tour of Helsinki. He is leading a pretty okay life until he comes to know that he has been shown the door by his employer. He decides to go to his cottage but there too he runs into some visitors who request him to entertain them.

‘Insignificant Details of the Accidental Episode’ was a Russian short film directed by Mestetskiy Mikhail. It was perhaps the best of the films in terms of storyline and (poetic) cinematography. It revolves around a young man who is on a train. The train stops in the middle of nowhere due to a technical fault and at the same time another train halts on the parallel track where the young man sees a girl in a strange position. It turns out that the tracks need to be mended. It takes quite a while for the repair job to be done and life goes on the two trains.

The second set of films was called Risky Business.