Richard Raskin is an expert on the short film based in Denmark. Cecilia McAllister talked to him ahead of his talk at this year's Cork Symposium on the Short Film.

Richard Raskin teaches screenwriting and video production in Denmark, at the University of Aarhus. His books include: The Functional Analysis of Art (1982), Alain Resnais's Nuit et Brouillard (1987), Life is Like a Glass of Tea: Studies of Classic Jewish Jokes (1992), The Art of the Short Fiction Film: A Shot-by-Shot Study of Nine Modern Classics (2002) and A Child at Gunpoint: A Case Study in the Life of a Photo (2004). His articles have appeared in such journals as Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, Film History, Folklore, Nua: Studies in Contemporary Irish Writing and Minerva: An Internet Journal of Philosophy. He organizes an international short film symposium every year, frequently lectures at film schools, is the founder and editor of p.o.v. - A Danish Journal of Film Studies, and has been jury president at festivals in France, Belgium, Holland and India.

Cecilia:1. What was the first short film you saw?

Richard:[Roman Polanski's] Two Men and a Wardrobe (Dwaj ludzie z szafa, 1958). It blew me away and has been my point of reference in working with the short film ever since.

2. Why?

When I first saw it, because it moved me deeply. Now I also realize that it was a great breakthrough in the development of the short fiction film. It was the first to combine the cinematic inventiveness of the experimental film with coherent, intelligible storytelling, and for that reason is the first modern short fiction film.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 107.