There’s officially a few more weeks to summer yet, but Labor Day always seems to be the psychological end of the season. Days start feeling shorter already. Halloween’s just around the corner. Leaves haven’t even started turning brown yet (Have they? I live in L.A.), but we’re already wistful for sunnier days and happier breezes.

Personally, my summer was kind of a bummer this year between losing my job and putting my cat to sleep. So, I can only hope for a better autumn. It’s my favorite season anyway. But for all of you who may be feeling wistful, I’m embedding a couple videos to help exacerbate the mood.

The above film, Another French New Wave, is by a new filmmaker I recently discovered. Alessandro Cima runs the blog Camouflage Lenses. He’s also an animator by trade who has started making “film poems,” which is what the above is. Ok, it’s not very summer-y, but it’s very wistful and I just love the sentiments that fill it’s short two-minute runtime. It’s quite a lovely ode to the French New Wave cinema and very difficult to argue with.

Next, we have Butterfly by Jennifer MacMillan (the video that inspired this post to begin with):

Is there anybody making more peaceful, soothing videos than MacMillan today? Also, according to her site, Invisible Cinema, she says she shot 30 minutes of butterflies to get this one perfect shot. She must have the patience of a saint, too.

Finally, we have A Sense of Place by Dave McDougall. (Video no longer available.)

I’m not familiar with McDougall’s work and I only just happened to stumble on this recently, but I like it a hell of a lot. It does exactly what the title says it’s going to do and it captures perfectly those quiet little moments of life where maybe there’s a ton of activity going on in the vicinity, but you just want to stop and watch the ducks floating in the water.

McDougall also runs the blog Chained to the Cinematheque and you can find this video on the new social networking site for film lovers The Auteurs, where I’ve created an account to help spread the underground word. It’s a nice site. (The Auteurs is now Mubi.com.)