This year the London Film Festival presented two programmes of British short films 'Brits in the Spotlight'. Strangely there were no Welsh or Northern Irish films. Is this new devolved art - the big countries call the shots? Selections were nearly all well directed, with high production values, serving as excellent promos for new directors or sfx companies. But very few were films. When they ended, they didn't - you wondered why has the film stopped or what next? - or why did she do that then? or worse, is that the point?

Most were scene sequences, out-takes from some future feature film; long comedy sketches; or experiments in directing. They didn't develop into and complete a coherent narrative. So let me describe some of those that did work well and why.

Jump Boy was a film with a point. Fifteen year old Baggy thinks he has more cool, style and attitude (all borrowed from the US), thinks he's the gang leader right, till he confronts an older cooler nemesis and gang. Supercool humiliates and robs Baggy and gang, takes offence at Baggy's front, beats up Baggy, leaving him pulped like his pulp values. Violence is the attitude - and you jump.

Jump Boy was slow opening, no matter how much kick ass style energy - walking along as a group and buying a hamburger for 5 minutes won't hold an audience. The audience got the idea, the set up - got all the characters faster than the film ok, [you characterize well, then trust your audience], we wanted different action - move the story. When the confrontation hit, the film picked up fast and there were plenty of nuances, with real power and emotions. At the end when Baggy lay there - the film had said it all.

Vacuum was 'a story of one man's battle to bring order to chaos'. Surreal, without dialogue, a single hander - in a derelict space a man vacuums crumpled and animated paper. This was the set up. The plot had twists and turns. In the man's battling with the paper - the vacuum overheated, the paper shifted, it made 20 foot mounds. And when it seemed the man had cleared the space, after he has left, one missed piece begins to replicate. A simple but surprising story with an answer to an open ending - you can't beat entropy. Salient - as I avoid clearing my desk again...