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After wired fashion, a film festival. Mobile films?

It's billed as "The world's smallest film festival" - and that's because it shows on the smallest screen of all: a phone screen. It's yet another bizarre feature of the huge CTIA show next week in New Orleans.

Our Sniffer normally prides himself on being able to get a unique slant on the packets he intercepts. This batch, he has just passed straight on:

You may love, or you may hate your cell phone, but if upstart BigDigit, Inc. in Los Angeles, producer of "The World's Smallest Film Festival", has anything to say about it you will be watching films on that cell phone faster than you can say "I want my MTV".

Apparently so say industry leaders including Intel, AT&T Wireless, BMW Films, m-Qube, PacketVideo, RealNetworks, LightSurf Technologies, and FrogPad, Inc. They are among the many companies that will make mobile video a reality, and are scheduled to take part in panel discussions, presentations, and viewing of competitive film entries at "The World's Smallest Film Festival".

This innovative event will be held on Tuesday the 18th of March, at the huge annual Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association show next week in New Orleans, March 17-19.

"The World's Smallest Film Festival" is the first-of-its-kind mobile telephone film festival, and will showcase a variety of creative films designed for presentation on the next-generation wireless phones. By "next generation" we are not talking about esoteric phaser-like devices in the hands of Captain Kirk, but mainstream telephones made by big names such as Sony Ericsson (pictured), Nokia, Motorola, Qualcomm and others.

These phones are coming on the market now. When you see your 16-year-old daughter laughing at motion pictures in her telephone, you can say you were forewarned: ready or not, here they come! And you can see them at this first ever mobile phone film fest.

One of the highlights of the film festival will be viewing the film finalists, and an awards presentation that recognizes the best entries from filmmakers around the world, with submissions spanning nine different categories: Drama, Comedy, Music, Episodic, Instructional, Animation, Commercial, Experimental, and Sports. More than 70 film entries have been accepted into "The World's Smallest Film Festival".

Detailed information on the "World's Smallest Film Festival" is available on the CTIA site , or at the official festival site at http://www.bigdigit.com/splash.