The Ten Short Films Podcast is the official audio companion to the Ten Short Films Festival — a one-of-a-kind nomadic festival travelling across Canada. Hosted by Canadian-Swiss cinematographer and festival co-founder Tara Mühlberghuber with Canadian camera operator and sound recordist Charles Paquin, the podcast takes you beyond the screen through candid, previously unheard conversations with the filmmakers behind the festival’s selected films.
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Tara Mühlberghuber, Charles Paquin, Ten Short Films Festival
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Tara Mühlberghuber shares the deeply personal story behind Forget Me Not— the film that ultimately inspired the creation of the Ten Short Films Festival.
What began as So I Can Remember You, a series of interviews with Tara’s grandparents, became an archive of love stories, family history, war, art, humour, and memories that might otherwise have disappeared. As her grandmother’s health declined, the project transformed into something more urgent: an attempt to preserve their friendship and remember her not by the way she left, but by the life she lived.
Joined by Andrew Brennan, Hannah Bacon Brennan, Aicha Lasfar, and Zoe Towne, the conversation explores grief, documentary, family archives, childhood memory, and why filmmakers are uniquely positioned to preserve the people closest to them.
It also tells the story of how one birthday screening in Kitchener grew into a travelling film festival dedicated to giving emerging and overlooked filmmakers a place for their work to be seen.
19 Jul 2026
Special Episode 2: A Love Letter to Ffern—Making Three Speculative Fragrance Films
In this special episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Charles Paquin and Tara Mühlberghuber look back on the creative journey behind their three speculative short films inspired by Ffern — a fragrance house whose cinematic world first sparked their imagination.
What began as a simple love letter to a brand became an ongoing filmmaking experiment: three seasonal films, new collaborations, ambitious visual worlds, and some of their favourite work to date.
Charles and Tara discuss the creative process behind each film, from admiration and discovery to production challenges, snowstorms, underwater ideas, horseback riding, drone shots, and the joy of building small cinematic worlds with friends and collaborators.
The episode also features a special interview with Sara Faisal, recorded on the first day of production for the latest Ffern-inspired film, The Quest for the Scent of Summer. Sara shares how she joined the project, her connection to horseback riding, and what it was like stepping into this imaginative world.
A conversation about human-first storytelling, community filmmaking, creative risk, and making beautiful things before anyone asks you to.
19 Jul 2026
Episode 6: Creating a World
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Charles Paquin and Tara Mühlberghuber speak with Andrew Brennan and Hannah Bacon Brennan, the creative team behind Audiophile, about building a cinematic world from the first spark of an idea to the final image on screen.
The conversation explores how a concept becomes a story, how colour and light can define characters, and how a short film can serve as a proof of concept for a much larger action-thriller world.
Andrew and Hannah also take us behind the scenes of Audiophile’s ambitious truck sequence — from road closures, stunt driving, police supervision, winter night shoots, and a truck that refused to cooperate, to replica sets, practical effects, and the movie magic used to keep the actors safe while making the scene feel dangerous.
A conversation about imagination, collaboration, problem-solving, and the dedication it takes to bring a world from your mind to the screen.
13 Jul 2026
Special Episode 1: Forget Me Not on CBC's Ottawa Morning – July 9th, 2026
Interviewer: Rebecca Zandbergen
91.5 FM Radio Ottawa-Gatineau.
In this 7-min segment of her Ottawa Morning radio show, Rebecca Zandbergen talks with filmmaker Tara Mühlberghuber about her short film Forget Me Not.
Watch Forget Me Not today on CBC Gem:
https://gem.cbc.ca/ottawa-reel-shorts-eps-8 (https://gem.cbc.ca/ottawa-reel-shorts-eps-8)
2 Jul 2026
Episode 5: The Paranormal World
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Charles Paquin and Tara Mühlberghuber explore the paranormal, horror, and our fascination with the unknown.
Featuring James Lessard, director of Animus, and Tara Mühlberghuber, cinematographer and director of Oneironaut, the conversation looks at why supernatural stories stay with us, from haunted houses and ghost-hunting games to Ouija boards, unexplained glitches, sleepover stories, and the unsettling feeling of being watched by something we cannot understand.
Together, they discuss how horror can turn fear into connection, how humour and friendship can make terror feel more real, and why the genre gives us a strange sense of control over the things that scare us most.
25 Jun 2026
Episode 4: Grief, Dance, and the Stories We Carry
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Tara Mühlberghuber continues the filmmaker conversations with Laurie Caron, Thomas Hinse, and Hanna Brennan-Bacon, exploring how grief, memory, family, and emotional restraint can shape a film from the inside out.
The discussion moves between two deeply personal creative approaches: one filmmaker reflects on grief through the story of a teacher, a child, and a parent confronting expectations, while another speaks about using dance, movement, and music to express the loss of a mother without relying on words.
Together, they discuss performance, childhood memory, teaching, family relationships, choreography, golden-hour cinematography, long takes, and the delicate process of turning lived experience into cinema.
18 Jun 2026
Episode 3: Men and Vulnerability on Screen
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Tara Mühlberghuber speaks with James Lessard, Delroy Goveas, Gracie Henneberry, and J-S Boyer about men’s mental health, vulnerability, love, isolation, and the emotional force behind genre storytelling.
Through a candid conversation about dark, romantic creature horror, they explore how masculinity can teach men to suppress pain, how regret and grief can become terrifying inner worlds, and why checking in on people matters more than we realize.
The discussion also goes behind the making of the film — from sleep paralysis and uncanny horror to visual style, local Ottawa locations, emotional performance, broken glass, improvised intensity, and the strange joy of turning personal fear into cinema.
12 Jun 2026
Episode 2: Documentary and Family Stories
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Charles and Tara host a filmmaker conversation exploring documentary and family stories — films that begin close to home and grow into something much bigger than memory.
Joined by Gagan Preet Singh, Tara Mühlberghuber, Nicole Bedford, and Laurie Caron, the discussion explores grandparents, parents, home, distance, grief, love, and the quiet everyday moments filmmakers capture before they disappear.
From creating personal time capsules and filming the people closest to us, to the responsibility of telling real stories with honesty and care, this episode looks at how documentary can preserve not only who people are, but how it felt to be with them.
8 Jun 2026
Episode 1: French-Canadian Cinema: Language, Memory, and Stories Close to Home
In this episode of Ten Short Films Podcast, Charles and Tara host a filmmaker conversation from the Ottawa edition of the Ten Short Films Festival at the Mayfair Theatre.
Joined by Cristi Parpalita, Jean-Philippe Grignon, Thomas Hinse, Laurie Caron, Aisha Lasfar, Delroy Goveas, and Gracie Henneberry, the discussion explores what makes a film feel distinctly French-Canadian beyond language.
From Québec’s documentary traditions and restrained visual style to absurd humour, family simplicity, nature, road trips, romance, tragedy, and films made across language barriers, this episode looks at how French-Canadian cinema finds poetry in ordinary people, intimate emotions, and stories that feel close to home.
7 Jun 2026
Episode 0: What Is Ten Short Films?
In Episode Zero of the Ten Short Films Podcast, Tara and Charles introduce the story behind the Ten Short Films Festival — a nomadic Canadian festival born from Tara’s wish to screen her short film "Forget Me Not" for family and friends in honour of her grandmother.
What began as one cinema screening in Kitchener soon travelled to Ottawa’s Mayfair Theatre, with curated programs, filmmaker Q&As, People’s Choice Awards, sidewalk awards ceremonies, and a growing dream: to bring short films to ten cinemas across Canada, then carry the winning films overseas.
Charles and Tara discuss the festival’s origins, its love of documentaries, dramas, horror, French Canadian cinema, and the open invitation for filmmakers across Canada to submit bold, personal, memorable films.
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