John Bonner's film "The Impossible Journey" gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "You can't get there from here."
The short movie, which will screen at the Winter Film Festival on Thursday, Feb. 16, tells the story of an 18-mile bicycle ride that Bonner took from his home in Marblehead to Boston.
It shows how that distance, which is relatively easy to commute by car, is barely passable for self-propelled people.
"I was inspired by Michael Palin of 'Monty Python,' and David Attenborough," said Bonner of his deadpan, on-screen demeanor.
Like both of these veteran TV hosts, Bonner is English, in addition to being an accomplished painter. He will appear at the screening to answer questions.
The Marblehead Festival of Arts holds this winter screening every year as a retrospective of work shown during its annual summer festivals.
"We try to show the films that people liked during the summer, and in addition pick out some films that we showed in the past that had a good response," said Mike Evers, who has helped organize the film festival for 12 years.
"The Impossible Journey," for example, was voted best film by the audience at its debut last summer.
Running just over seven minutes, it is also brief, like all 11 of the films being shown. The longest is around 14 minutes.
That is by design, according Evers, because short entries are convenient for the judges to watch, an important consideration given their limited time and resources.
But short films are also suited to the skills and budgets of beginning filmmakers, who submit the bulk of the entries to the festival.
"The relation between a short narrative film and a longer feature film is the same relationship that a short story has to a novel," said Evers, who teaches English at Salem State. "Where the novel allows you to develop characters, the short story requires you to do things within a small narrative space."
That was certainly the case with "Pie Heist" by Steve Baldwin, which was originally created as an entry in the 48 Hour Film Project Festival in 2010.
As its name implies, the project, started in 2001, gives teams of filmmakers a premise, a prop and 48 hours to create a film between four and seven minutes long.
These conditions are designed to force people to make creative decisions, rather than think too long about what they want to do.
"When you only have 48 hours to make a film, it is often a real challenge for everything to come together in such a short time," said Baldwin, who previously taught video production at Gordon College, and now works as a director in Thailand for Createinternational.com.
His story depicts an elderly man who has been placed on a diet of celery and cottage cheese, and plots to steal a pie from a picnic basket.
"As a team, we felt that 'Pie Heist' was one of the times we got it right," Baldwin said.
He also attributes the success of the movie, which was shot at Salem Willows, to its star, Erik Rodenhiser of Salem.
"He was born with a pronounced funny bone, and can't help but make us all laugh," Baldwin said.
In addition to local productions, Evers tries to find work from as many different regions as possible, and has had submissions from the Midwest and the West Coast, as well as Australia and France.
He also tries to find work in a range of styles and genres. Two animated films are in this lineup, along with some reflective, poetic pieces to go with the comic films.
"The aim is to find a broad selection of films that are pretty much noncommercial," said Evers, who said his main purpose is to entertain.
"It is for the community," he said. "The board we have really represents a broad range from Marblehead or the North Shore, and that's the way I would like to keep it."
If you go
What: Marblehead Festival of Arts Winter Film Festival
When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Marblehead Little Theatre, 12 School St.
Admission: Free admission, free popcorn.
Information: www.marbleheadfestival.org.
