Each week the folks at Cinema Circus show a series of short films on Wednesday evening at the Chilmark Community center. The films begin at 6 p.m. but the circus — complete with jugglers, face painters, stilt walkers, food and music — gets under way at 5 p.m.

The short films are programmed each week around a central theme, introduced in the first film by Professor Projector. This week’s theme is the characters of a movie.

An advanced screening of the films was arranged with a young cineaste. This week’s reviewer is Porter Moehnke

Professor Projector: Characters (Dir. Scott Barrow / U.S.A. / 2013 / 5 min.)

This is a film about characters. I learned that they can be anything! A rock can be a character, a plant or even a worm! I thought this movie was a little weird.

Kostya (Dir. Anton Dyakov / Russia / 2012 / 6 min.)

Kostya is an animated film. It is about a skeleton who is very helpful. He helps a girl get her cat out of a tree. He dances for people and makes them happy. He helps a lady and her dog to get out of a busy road. It is too bad when he gets hit by a car and stepped on. A dog stole his boney leg! Kids use his head to play soccer. In the end a bird makes a nest in his skull. I medium liked this one. It taught me that it is nice to help people.

Wepo (Dir. Jackie Marion / U.S.A. / 2012 / 4 min.)

Wepo is an animated movie, too. It is about an alien. He is in outer space and his ship runs out of gas. He starts throwing stuff out of it looking for the gas can. He said “Neow” which must be alien language. It was funny when he threw out the gas can and it floated away! Then he said “Meteor! Yes! Yippie!” He gets hit by the meteor and it pushes him in the right direction. When he finally got to the gas station, his money wouldn’t go in to the machine. Poor alien. I liked this one.

Snap (Dir. Thomas G. Murphy / Belgium, U.K. / 2012 / 7 min.)

Snap is a movie about sea creatures. They catch fish for their dinner. But the little one never gets any so he is really hungry. A frog hides and tricks him. He is sad. The frog teaches him how to catch fish with his tongue. He trains really hard. Then he is able to catch the big fish. SNAP! He fighted a big bad sea monster. I liked it. It made me feel happy. I learned that if you keep working at something and learn it, you will do it. I didn’t realize that fish could do ninja moves!

Chip and Dory (Dir. Sung-chi Lo / Taiwan / 2012 / 4 min.)

Chip and Dory was not my favorite. It is about sheep sharing with each other and I think, falling in love. Gross! I didn’t really get it.

Boris the Rat Gives Up His Unhealthy Eating Habits (Dirs. Kaisa Penttila and Leena Laaskelainen / Finland / 2011 / 5 min.)

Boris the Rat Gives Up His Unhealthy Eating Habits is a cartoon movie. It is about a rat who eats everything in sight! Even a table! He wants to stop chewing but can’t. He learns to stop, but one day he bites an electric pole and ends up in jail. He puts celery in his ears. My cousin Martha told me this movie is about ‘self control’ but I am not sure. My sister Mathilda said the movie is about “When you’re hungry or thirsty, just go for it, and when you’re not, just stop,” but I’m not sure about that either. I think it was about eating healthy foods.

Aston’s Presents (Dirs. Uzi and Lotta Geffenblad / Sweden / 2012 / 9 min.)

Aston’s Presents is about a dog who makes presents out of everything. He got a bike and a kite for his birthday. But it was raining so he couldn’t play with them. He played with a piece of wood instead and made fun toys with it like a seesaw and a diving board. When it was a sunny day his kite got stuck in a tree and broke. He turned it into a boat. It made me feel good. In this film we had to read words on the screen because it was in a different language. I learned about the piece of wood being fun.

The Marvelous Adventures of Roby Robot (Dir. Leona Glavak / Croaia / 2011 / 3 min.) 

The Marvelous Adventures of Roby Robot is about a robot who gets in love ‘cause his dog’s leash gets twisted up with a girl robot’s dog leash. They go home and have two little robot kids. I didn’t learn anything in this film; it was really short. In this movie there were no words, just music!

Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend (Dir. Galen Fott / U.S.A. / 2013 / 10 min.)

Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend is about a squirrel who is scared of being bitten. He stays at home alone in his tree. Then he makes a plan to make friends with a goldfish. A dog messes up his plan and he doesn’t make friends with the goldfish. Instead he makes friends with the dog whose name is Buddy. They play hide and seek and fetch. This film made me feel good. I liked this one!

The Review on the Reviewer

Name: Porter Moehnke

Age: 7 years 3 months

School: West Tisbury School, going into 2nd grade.

Name and age of siblings: Mathilda is 4 and a half, and Margaret is the same age (they are twins).

Name of pet: No pets, but I really want a dog or a cat someday.

Something new you are learning: I am learning how to fish. I got a rod for my birthday.

New place you would like to explore: Someday I would like to explore Legoland!

New food you recently tried: I tried bologna at my friend Jack T’s house; it was pretty good!

Favorite thing about Martha’s Vineyard: Everything!

What do you want to do/be when you grow up: I would like to be on the Lego design team!

Anything else you want us to know about you: My grandparents Judy and Bobby live here, too!