Movies keep getting longer. Nobody blinks at a 3-hour tour of Middle Earth or Wall Street anymore. Even kids' movies are epic length, and yet theater seats aren't any comfier and the drinks at the concessions stands keep growing — a recipe for discomfort and/or disaster. What relief to see the art of short filmmaking is not lost.

The Future Shorts film festival lights up the screen at the Arcata Theater Lounge on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ($5). Get a look at how independent writers and directors around the globe see things. You can even stretch your legs now and then. This year's international tasting menu of movies includes the funny, the poignant and the downright strange.

The French film That I'm Falling follows a young man "on a long digestive journey" from the subway. Out of Reach, from Poland, is a portrait of family life with two motherless sisters in the iron grip of their father. Blind Spot is another short from France, this time about an old woman caught in the middle of a stick-up. Claymation weirdness takes over in the Serbian Rabbitland, a country of empty-headed pink bunnies in an endless cycle of daily voting. The Date, from Finland, is an awkward vignette about pimping out your stud cat. Last but not least, the Afghani film Buzkashi Boys is the story of two boys growing up in a war zone.