As we plan to either gather (in small groups) around the dinner table for a traditional family meal this Christmas season or, alternately, experience the profound absence of this cherished ritual, we figured that featuring Carol Nguyen’s acclaimed short film, No Crying at the Dinner Table, would be appropriate. Nguyen’s emotional film about her own family addressing unspoken feelings and revealing vulnerabilities promises some pain, but holds out the potential for catharsis.

“I wanted to explore the word that defined it all—“intergenerational trauma”

In No Crying at the Dinner Table, Carol Nguyen shines the light on her family and the intricacies of their internal dynamics. The genesis of the project arose while doing research for a fiction film about displays of love, and by asking her own family members about their own experience with love, she discovered new sides to her three-generation households and a new way to connect through their unspoken and undisclosed grief and trauma. “I wanted to know why we keep such feelings to ourselves, when sharing and verbalizing may be a critical step for closure” she explains while discussing the inspiration of the project. In her particular case, whether it is because of the cultural, language or generational barrier, appearing weak was to be avoided in her family, along with emotional confrontation, while warmth and tenderness were present in unspoken and subtle ways. This dynamic feels too close for comfort in my case, which makes her statement of a “desire to unearth a chest full of unsaid and unshared, in an attempt to start difficult conversations that would pull us closer together” all the more emotionally engaging.

“I wanted to explore the word that defined it all — ‘intergenerational trauma’. This to me was the assimilation of love, communication and culture” Nguyen tells us while discussing the aim of the film. It surely is a complex subject and tackling it from such a personal perspective brings a level of authenticity that cannot be manufactured. Since she is directing her own family members the level of trust does allow her subjects to feel comfortable while the presence of the camera making it easier and more fruitful to dive into those topics that are not usually addressed around the dinner table. The staging is quite simple, being around the table instantly recreates the atmosphere of familial closeness without distracting us from the emotional Pandora’s box slowly opening up.

The editing also structures the film in a way that makes the emotional journey remarkably satisfying without feeling contrived or manipulative. The process obviously comes from a loving place and this purity shows itself in how genuine and cathartic the emotional climaxes are. Nguyen allows her family to hear their own interviews which proves to be a perfect strategy in getting the ball rolling and shaking up the emotional status quo. From there compassion takes over, and we can see how by revealing those unspoken feelings the family is connecting in a deeper way. While it was impossible for my eyes to remain dry, Nguyen does end the film with a touch of humor, wrapping the film on a positive note.

No Crying at the Dinner Table had a very impressive run on the festival circuit after its premiere at the 2019 edition of TIFF. With multiple selections at festivals around the world including the Palm Springs ShortFest, it was also nominated at the 2020 Canadian Screen Awards and won the Oscar-qualifying award at SXSW 2020 which makes it currently in consideration for the 2021 Academy Awards. Nguyen is currently developing her first documentary feature while also working on an animated short film.

When a freak accident almost kills him and leaves him blind, Nick Mullins finds his life shattered. A young adult with a passion for skateboarding, his outlook radically changes as he has to come to terms with his new way of living and learn to overcome the various challenges ahead. In his documentary short You And The Thing That You Love, director Nicholas Maher captures Mullins’ story through a surprisingly relatable and inspiring lens, crafting a film that strikes the perfect balance between being a cool skateboarding movie and a touching, empowering tale of a man driven by his passion.

Maher came across Mullins’ story in a newspaper article. Contacting him was easy, but at first, the prospect of being the focus of a documentary didn’t have much appeal for the young skater. The pair quickly built a rapport though and ultimately Mullins opened up and decided to share his story with Maher.

“You don’t have to skate or even be a sports fan to marvel at his dedication”

Through his humility and vulnerabilities, You and the Thing that You Love makes Mullins’ very specific journey genuine and universal, with elements that anyone can relate to. Maher elevates his story, but also grounds it in reality, making it all the more emotionally engaging. “You don’t have to skate or even be a sports fan to marvel at his dedication to his craft and relate to some part of his struggle”, the director reveals as he discusses Mullins and why he was inspired to capture his story on-screen.

Skateboarding plays a large role in Mullins’ life and Maher certainly injects some of the cool tropes you’d usually expect to find in skate videos, into his doc. The filmmaker doesn’t shy away from showing the harder parts of his subject’s life though, giving the film real impact, by making his overall positivity feel very organic and inspiring. As we witness Mullins recounting the details of his life-changing accident, and then the aftermath of learning how to live with a disability, we begin to understand how his passion and drive ultimately turns into the engine of his survival.

Archival footage plays a key role in painting a picture of Mullins before the accident

“The biggest challenge for me, as a director, was to put together Nick’s story with good secondary visuals”, Maher tells us about his directorial choices. While the backbone of the film, its story, is already quite engaging, Maher fleshed out his film, complementing the narrative with engaging imagery that give the film its impressive atmosphere.

The use of mixed-media makes the film much more entertaining than the traditional use of talking heads, but it’s also used in such a way that sets the tone, instead of feeling like a cheap gimmick. Since Mullins’ talks about his life before the accident, the home footage is the perfect way to get a good grasp of who he used to be.

Through its visuals, the story becomes even more emotionally engaging, with the editing playing a crucial part in shaping the story and making it so effective (as is often the case with documentaries). With dashes of humor throughout, Maher structures the film in a way that shows Mullins in an empowered yet humble light. Even the cold open appears to perfectly encapsulate the whole vibe of the film, as we’re introduced to Mullins the elements of the story are brought to the screen subtlety without ever being over-sensationalized.

There’s a certain appeal to the visual aesthetic of skate videos, but here it is Maher’s approach that truly makes You And The Thing That You Love stand out and strike a chord. We are excited to feature the film on S/W and equally excited to see what the director will do next.

How do you make a modern “woke” film about race, identity, and diversity without inadvertently creating an eye-roll inducing, finger-wagging session?

Tribes, from director Nino Aldi and writer Andy Marlatt, just might have the answer: a farcical, over-the-top comedy about three amateur thieves, each of different race, attempting to rob the passengers on a train, only to find that their own preconceived biases get in the way from actually boosting anything.

Admittedly, I’m surprised Tribes worked for me – I tend to despise films with overt moralizing. One could imagine how easily a comedic film dealing with “sensitive” and “important” topics could have devolved into “clapter,” the message becoming overshadowed by its own preachiness. But, Tribes is just a lot of fun: fast-paced and frantic, using broad character tropes to cleverly call out our own societal biases.

DeStorm Power (left), Adam Waheed (center) & Jake Hunter (right) as the amateur thieves in Tribes

In effect, it gets away with being cheesy and saccharine by being self-aware and knowing that it is being cheesy and saccharine, complete with a treacly orchestral score as characters start monologue-ing. Is this a bit of cheat? Sure. But, I’d much rather have these sentiments delivered with winking self-awareness as opposed to overwrought melodrama. While the message here is certainly “Kumbaya,” the darkly satirical edge makes it so it never feels rote.

My favorite bit is the sequence about halfway through where the robbers keep trying to divide the crowd of hostages via different categorizations. As their compartmentalization keeps on getting more and more ludicrous, it’s a wry look at how classification, in general, is a fruitless endeavor as we all self-identify in different ways.

While I won’t argue that Tribes is deep, in a year that has incontrovertibly proven that systemic racism is still a major problem in the United States (and across the world), its discussion of societal separatism feels undoubtedly pertinent. At the end of the day, we’re all just human, and if it takes a bunch of dim-witted, racially-diverse criminals to get that point across…well…there are worse ways to get us all to come together.

Inspired by a “nostalgia” for old family photo albums and described by its creators as a “small tribute to all the Spanish republicans who passed through the concentration camps”, Enric Ribes’ engrossing documentary 5124.GREYKEY uses retro techniques, recreated home movies and personal/archival photography to visualise a daughter’s memories of an enigmatic father. Parents are often mysterious creatures for their children, but for Muriel a series of small discoveries lead her to understand the troubled past of her father José Carlos and to finally understand why he always wore a shirt and trousers to the beach.

Opening with a shot of the sea, the location of the beach and that aforementioned question, revolving around her father’s seemingly inappropriate attire, become central to not only our perception of José Carlos – the man, but Muriel’s appreciation of José Carlos – the father. Much like how the daughter builds a solid understanding of her Dad’s past, bit-by-bit, a picture of Jose only starts to form after we are given the pieces of the puzzle to put together ourselves.

“Very little is known about José Carlos”

From his beachwear, to his strange routines and his fears, like a mystery that is solved little-by-little, as we form a complete picture of this deportee, only then can we truly begin to understand what his life must have been like. “Very little is known about José Carlos”, Ribes explains as we discuss 5124.GREYKEY, “he wanted to erase his past and was very reserved”. Following his deportation, there was scant information to be found about him, but for years he Carlos been of interest to historians, due to two photos from his imprisonment in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

With the material and new information used in this piece having never been seen before 5124.GREYKEY becomes more than just an insightful and compelling short film, it becomes an important historical document. “Many historians are interested”, Ribes reveals as we talk about the decision to capture José Carlos’ story on film and the significance of the short now. With so little information about the concentration camp survivor available before, the director reveals those interested in his story are turning to their documentary for a greater understanding of his past.

Family photos play an important role in creating the nostalgic, intimate feel of the film.

Consisting of painstakingly recreated home movies (reshot on Super 8 and 16mm – as Muriel couldn’t retrieve them), photos (both from Muriel’s archive and historic archives) and stop-motion (created by S/W alums I+G Stop Motion), Ribes and his team are keen to point out that 5124.GREYKEY is a “very handmade movie”. This filmmaking approach not only working to highlight the key element of nostalgia in the short, but also adding a real sense of intimacy to proceedings.

With the director pointing to family photo albums as a key influence in the creation of the film, it’s easy to see how this notion of a personal collection of memories proved inspirational in the filmmaking of 5124.GREYKEY. The confidential feel of the voiceover married with the selection of private photographs from the past (all of which were filmed in 16mm one-by-one) makes it feel as if you’re sitting side-by-side with Muriel as she plucks memories of her father from her mental stores – the clever b-roll footage feeling like echoes of these memories glimpsed straight from her mind.

A visually striking documentary, with a strong emotional hook, Ribes and his fellow Häns production filmmakers return to S/W after impressing back in 2016 with Xiong Di – another film we praised for ‘an engaging storyline with some impressive production values’. 5124.GREYKEY is an exclusive online version of a series of documentaries Ribes and his team created about Spanish prisoners in concentration camps, we’re so glad they decided to share it with S/W and proud to feature this incredible story on our site.

A winsomely odd story about social anxiety and the transcendent meaning of dreams, Jack Cooper Stimpson’s debut narrative short Alex’s Dream is a charming comedy with its heart in the right place. Following titular 20-something Alex, as he finds himself overdressed at a private party, he stumbles through a series of slightly surreal situations, always unsure of what to do with himself. The awkward humor of the interactions are perfectly captured by Alex Lawther’s (The End of the F***ing World) pleasantly neurotic lead performance, as we find ourselves strangely immersed in this world of first-time meetings and stunted conversations.

Reluctantly answering his friend Archie’s “call to action” – to help him out with a girl (Emma Corrin, The Crown) – we join our insecure hero as he’s introduced to the other party guests and eventually persuaded to share a personal tale from his subconsciousness. He’s feeling out of his depth, but at least he can always rely on the simple, but profound wisdom of the “talking“ dog he just met…

Alex’s Dream is impressive for many reasons, but one of the first things that stands out in the short is its impressive cast. Lead actor Alex Lawther made a name for himself in the Netflix series The End of the F***ing World and has also appeared in an episode of Black Mirror and films including The Imitation Game and Goodbye Christopher Robin. While fellow party-goers include a room full of on-the-rise British acting talent, most notably Emma Corrin, appearing on-screen two-years before she’d grab headlines as Princess Diana in Series Four of The Crown.

“It’s nice to film a whole story in a day”

Asked about his involvement in Alex’s Dream and the difference between working on a low-budget short and a TV show, Lawther explains that “there isn’t an awful lot of difference between the mediums”, adding that “sometimes it’s nice to film a whole story in a day — and sometimes it’s nice to spend months with that story.”

In our interview with writer/director Stimpson, the filmmaker admits that it was certainly a bonus to have well-known faces in his short, in terms of getting attention, but he was also keen to point out that the most important aspect is whether each actor is right for the role. Stimpson knew that Lawther had the right sensibility for the character, labelling him a “wonderfully sensitive and precise actor”, before adding that he thinks “he’s so good at balancing the comedy of the film with the wacky kind of dream scape of it.”

“There’s a feeling that you want to be part of telling this story”, Lawther on why he was drawn to Alex’s Dream.

There’s a certain “quirkiness” to Alex’s Dream, which Stimpson manages to convey in a way that lends the short a unique sensibility, The framework of the film itself is a familiar story about young people at a party, but the trick is that in-between this classical structure, most situations and interactions feel ever so slightly left of center. As Stimpson admits, the plot “starts off almost formulaic. We [think we] know how this is gonna go. He walks in with his best friend, his best friend wants to talk to a girl, we think that the girl is going to become a big part of the narrative, and they’re going to sort of fall in love” – until things take an unexpected turn.

“You can afford to take risks and be expressive with the world you’re creating”

Alex’s Dream eventually leaves the viewer with more questions than answers but in a good way. It invites us to reflect for ourselves and maybe even think about the last dream we weren’t able to shake, even though it might not be clear what it exactly meant. 

“I think I’m naturally quite drawn to films and ideas that don’t quite add up or don’t feel the need to resolve everything for an audience”, Stimpson explains. “It’s also the joy of making short films, that by their very nature you can afford to take risks and be expressive with the world you’re creating.”

Lillie Flynn, Camille Ucan, Alex Lawther, Emma Corrin, Sam Haygart and Olivia Popica in Alex’s Dream

Putting its audience in the shoes of Alex, the person at the party who is too anxious to make deeper connections, until he opens up in an honest and intimate way, will make Alex’s Dream an empathetic watch for many of us. Before that moment, he seems to be strangely detached from his surroundings and is visibly uncomfortable in his own skin. Then again, who among us has never felt what it’s like to be lonely among other people?

“Alex’s Dream doesn’t immediately present itself as a film about mental health”

In effect, Alex’s behavior, and the film’s underlying nervous energy, genuinely reflect the anxiety and (adolescent) angst of someone who’s neither at ease with himself or with what’s going on around him. But I think if there’s anything we can relate to in this year 2020, it is the existential dread of a crooked normalcy – still recognizable, but tilted.

One of the things I personally admire about Alex’s Dream is how it deals with the topic of mental health without being about mental health, per se. The film captures the problems at the macro level by telling an intimate, slice-of-life story. “I’m aware that Alex’s Dream doesn’t immediately present itself as a film about mental health,“ says Stimpson. “But I think I kind of came to the realization afterwards that there’s actually a lot about male insecurity, male anxiety, male relationships and a lot of my own feelings, like very personal things I’ve just sort of accidentally put into the film.“

“It was a lovely thing working with a close friend” – Lawther’s relationship with Stimpson, began when they met on Old Boys

For filmmakers who want to make films about issues such as mental health, without stumbling into on-the-nose, PSA-like territory, writer/director Stimpson shares his own learnings on what one might want to consider when writing scripts with a similar angle: “Every character has a mental health – so maybe that’s a fantastic way of thinking about it. And just acknowledging that maybe one of your characters might be less than okay, right now. […] So when you’re writing a character, you should be thinking about their mental health and where that lies on the kind of spectrum of it.”

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to be talking about these issues”

In reality, this adapted way of thinking applies to any topic one is looking to incorporate as a storyteller, not just mental health. The writer/director applied the same method of “filmmaking-as-activism”, as I like to call it, to his latest short Extinction – a narrative film starring Emma Thompson about the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion.

“I think activism through filmmaking, whether it’d be mental health, or the environment, is just a great thing to do”, Stimpson explains as we discuss why he’s drawn to certain themes as a director. “Filmmaking, speaking generally here, has a disproportion of audience for what it is. It’s so powerful and it can get such attention, that it’s a fantastic opportunity to be talking about these issues.”

Stimpson is currently developing a BBC series based on that short, together with his writing partner, actor Sam Haygarth (Jojo Rabbit, The French Dispatch), who plays Alex’s lovelorn friend Archie. Considering the technical skill and vulnerable warmth of Stimpson’s storytelling abilities, evident in Alex’s Dream, and given the promising outlook of his Extinction series project, I am sure we will be hearing a lot more from this filmmaker in the future.

After a private premiere in collaboration with British mental health charity CALM, Jack Cooper Stimpson’s Alex’s Dream had its official online release with Short of the Week today. A short with an attention-grabbing cast, we took the opportunity to talk to the 24-year old writer/director about the process of making a short film with recognisable faces, including Alex Lawther (The End of the F***ing World, The Imitation Game) and Emma Corrin (The Crown, Pennyworth).

Revealing how he got rising film and TV actors to star in his first narrative short and his reasons for breaching out from acting to writing and directing, Stimpson offers advice for fellow burgeoning filmmakers, who are looking to cast stars such as Emma Thompson in their next short film.

You and Alex [Lawther] were flatmates while you wrote the script for Alex’s Dream and the character is obviously called Alex. How did you know each other? Did you write the role with him in mind?

Yes, we were living together at the time. We worked together on a film called Old Boys, which was a British feature film that came out in 2018.

Were you acting in that film?

I acted in that film, yes. Alex and I were in that film together and had great fun. And then we moved in together after the film. And, you know, Alex was off doing The End of the F***ing World. His career was really taking off at that point and he was doing such exciting work. And I was still acting, but also starting to think about writing/directing more seriously, because I’d sort of produced for other people and have done a bit of that kind of work. But I realized that some of the work I was producing, I wasn’t necessarily a big fan of it. I was just kind of going through the motions a bit with it. So I wanted to try to write and direct. 

Alex Lawther on the set of Alex’s Dream.

Alex was very encouraging of that and we spent many days and nights talking about the idea and he sort of said, “You should go for it. But be weirder, go and really push the boat out with it.” And then it comes to the awkward moment where you have to be like, “Oh, by the way, do you want to be in this?”

Luckily, he thought it sounded like fun and he’d love to do it. So yes, it was very much written for Alex. I try not to write with people in mind too much. But you know, it’s a no-brainer when you’re close with someone like Alex, because he’s just such a fantastic actor, and he has a really good knowledge of cinema. 

I think, if you’re proposing really big, bold things to him, like, “Oh, yeah, by the way, you’re going to be talking to a dog, and then you’re going to end up on a fishing boat“, he’s not going, “Oh, is this gonna make me look a bit stupid? Instead he’s going, “That’s going to work, I can see how this is going to work”, and he’s already figuring it out.

Do you consider yourself more of a writer/director by now or do you still see yourself as an actor as well?

I definitely still consider myself both. I think being a multi-hyphenate is fantastic. It’s what I enjoy doing. And I don’t want to kind of limit myself just yet. I mean, I’m doing so much writing and directing right now that I consider myself that primarily at the moment, and I’m so excited to ride that train as far as it goes and to see what happens.

Alex Lawther, Simon Manyonda, Emma Corrin, Jack Cooper Stimpson and Sam Hayharth on the set of Alex’s Dream.

At the end of 2018, I shot a TV series called World on Fire, which was a quite large scale BBC One, WWII drama, and I had a very small part in it. It should have been a really exciting thing to be doing that, but I just felt I felt like I wanted to be doing the writing/directing more at that point in time. So I had to think really honestly and really hard about it to kind of say, “Where do you want to put the attention for next year? What do you want to do?”

I know this sounds so pretentious, but this is the easiest way to say it: I consider myself a filmmaker. And I think being a filmmaker is acting, writing, directing and watching films; it’s everything. I just love every element of it, really, so it sort of makes sense to be doing a bit of everything. But I think for now, the writing and directing will take up 90% of my time. I started working in this industry quite young. I started when I was 16. I’ve been around sets and around this for a little while and you know, directing is a huge step up and it was a big, bold learning curve, but it felt like the right time to do it.

The entire cast of your film has really impressive credits to their name, especially Alex and Emma [Corrin]. Did you know all of them beforehand as friends, or did you just pick the rising talents in British film and TV? How did the casting come about?

I knew Alex, Emma and Simon [Manyonda]. Those were the three people that I knew, personally as friends, prior to shooting. I mean, this was the first film that Emma shot. She hadn’t done anything before this. She had done a couple of short films when she was at university, I think, but this was like the first thing that she had done as a paid job. We were very good friends at the time. So it was a real pleasure to have her on board and to have her trust and to have everyone’s trust.

Emma Corrin and Sam Haygarth in Alex’s Dream.

Sam [Haygarth], who plays Archie in the film, who is sort of Alex’s best friend, the very tall guy in the corduroy suit, has now become my right writing partner. We wrote a short film last year called Extinction together, which was about a group of climate activists. And that got picked up for a series by the BBC. So we’re writing that together. Which is crazy, because Sam auditioned for the film, and he’s now become my working partner. So it’s very sort of serendipitous and has a touch of fate about it.

Obviously, Alex was quite established by the time we shot the film, people knew who he was, he had done Black Mirror and things of that nature. We were very lucky with the casting really, and just very lucky that people have blossomed in the way they have. It’s very exciting to see what everyone’s doing now. But a bit of chance, basically.

 So you have all these actors going on to do bigger things: The Crown, The End of the F***ing World, and you yourself working on your own BBC show at 24! How does it feel when friends get to this level of success? And I guess my question would be for aspiring filmmakers, how much would you say was just luck and good timing? How much did your previous experiences help?

Hmm, that’s a really good question. I think there’s huge focus with short films to get big talent, because it feels like a really obvious way to get attention as it’s a very simple exchange of, “Well, people know who this person is, therefore, they want to watch the film.” And we all have to acknowledge that, we all have to use that. Of course, the people who get attention also tend to be pretty good at their job for the most part. So it’s fine. It’s a system that kind of works out, I think, for the most part. 

“I think there’s huge focus with short films to get big talent.”

It’s difficult when people assume that I just wanted Alex to do this because he had a following, because he was well known or whatever, because he’s a friend. For me, shooting my first film, I can’t think of anyone better to work with because he has that trust, he knows me very well. He knows what I wanted to do there. So actually, it’s sort of a marriage of lots of different things. 

At the same time, it would be naive to ignore the fact that it really helps and of course, Emma’s trajectory afterwards has been like a steep curve. It’s great. Are we releasing the film at this point of time to catch The Crown wave? Yeah, of course we are. Because we want people to watch the film. And that’s done marketing. You can’t feel bad about that. It’s a strange thing, but one would really have to remind yourself to not focus on the talent side of it too much. You’ve got to find the right people for the job. 

Alex Lawther, Olivia Popica and Emma Corrin on the set of Alex’s Dream.

I’ve been very lucky. The second short film I directed last year, Extinction, had Emma Thompson in it. Who is obviously a huge talent. She’s a two time Academy Award-winning actress and that’s been a huge door opener.

How did you get Emma Thompson to act in your short?

Well, the film is about a group of climate activists. It’s basically about Extinction Rebellion, the protest group. And, of course, Emma Thompson has been a long term advocate for climate policy. She is an activist, plain and simple. She was getting involved with Extinction Rebellion, so when Sam and I were writing the film together, we kind of dreamed up this idea where we thought, wouldn’t it be fantastic if Emma Thompson got involved. And we managed to get the script to her and she agreed to come on board. She was right for the film: if you want someone to play a climate activist, who better than a climate activist.

You got Emma Thompson for your short Extinction because of the topic of the film, and you couldn’t have anticipated Emma Corrin’s success. So if we’d want to break it down, getting actors is about writing a good script and trusting in your collaborators and them trusting in you. Right?

I think you’ve put that really well. It’s still a process with casting and I think you have to look at all the options, but of course, you should go with your instincts on it. And these were people that I knew really well and cared about, and they really cared about me, so it felt like a very natural thing to do. They were also invested in the project, it was very collaborative.

I don’t think you can try and anticipate these things too much. I think if you can cast fantastic actors in your film, that’s great. But you’ve got to make sure that the script’s great already. If you’ve got a bad script, having a good actor doesn’t balance that out.

If you were offering advice for fellow short filmmakers, do you think there’s a way to approach these kinds of actors? Is it just getting through their agent? I mean, as you said, if you don’t have a script that’s good enough, you wouldn’t even get those actors.

It’s a really complicated thing. All these actors are very kind of guarded when they get to a certain level, because they receive a lot of scripts, but that doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong by wanting to send the script to them. I think that’s an important thing to remember: if you are making the films for the right reason, and you feel like that actor is the right person for that, then you shouldn’t feel apologetic about that, or like you’re wasting people’s time. Actors should want to work and they should want to be involved with exciting projects.

They need you as much as you need them and that’s the important thing to remember. I think you need to instil that belief in yourself before you can go out and start sending work out. I’d say, if you have an actor in mind who has a profile and is going to be quite a big get, you need to be really prepared for that. Once you send that script off, there’s no going back from that, you can’t ask to send another draft. I think it’s about finding the right time in the project to do that. 

“There’s a democracy to making short films”

I don’t need to tell you, you work for Short for the Week, you understand this, but short films is such an important platform. People still kind of look down their noses at them slightly, in some circles. It’s all a bit, “Everyone’s making short films.” But that’s the fantastic thing, that there’s a democracy to making short films. Every filmmaker has made short films at some point. So I don’t think we should be too snotty about them, or too judgmental.

I think that’s really inspiring advice. Has Alex’s Dream already helped you in your next steps? Or was everything already moving along before the short film?

Oh, no, no, it was definitely a game-changer in opening lots of doors for me. Definitely. As I said, I met Sam through the film and that was a huge thing for me personally. Sam was also an up-and-coming actor, and writer as well, so we were at a similar level at that point. Now we’ve got our first television commission and that’s been a huge step forward. It also helped me get my first writing and directing agent. That wouldn’t have happened without Alex’s Dream.

It’s also been a good conversation starter. For me, it really built my confidence and it’s really made me feel like this is possible. This is something I can do and I want to do.

Parts of the interview have been edited for brevity and clarity.

All photos and behind-the-scenes shots by Cecilie Harris. Most set photos have been cropped to fit in with our page formatting.

Not to get too inside baseball into our selection process, but It’s Been A While is a film that really divided the team. I don’t mean to suggest that the film isn’t good—it’s an objectively well-shot and entertaining bite-size indie dramedy led by a great comedic performance from star Meg Cashel. But, the central joke skews familiar. An awkward TMI voicemail barrage? What is this? Swingers?

It’s a somewhat “done” idea that had us questioning the film’s novelty. After all, is there enough here beyond a funny escalation of a comedic premise? In more succinct terms, is this more than a sketch?

The magic trick of this short—which was created on a shoestring by director/cinematographer Brett Cramer and screenwriter Ryan Sheppard—is that it manages to balance the broad comedy with emotional resonance. Structurally, the film is a bell curve—a rubber band that is stretched out only to be reeled back in by a surprising reveal that serves as an effective emotional kicker.

Cramer describes It’s Been a While as “a memorable performance piece designed around one character”.

This is the rare jokey premise that actually sticks the landing. I often talk about endings being hard (especially in shorts), but this conclusion is not only surprising, it reinforms all that came before it. As it turns out, what we’ve been watching isn’t a broad comedy after all, but rather, a melancholic drama about needing human connection, even if one is searching for it in the wrong place.

In the year that was/is 2020, isn’t that relatable? For a 5 minute short full of jokes, I found myself surprisingly moved by this conclusion. As quarantine stretches on and on, don’t we all just want someone to talk to?

As screenwriter Ryan Sheppard relates:

It’s worth noting that I have screened literally hundreds of COVID or COVID-adjacent shorts this year. That shouldn’t be surprising—after all, the pandemic has defined 2020. But, I think what a lot of these shorts get wrong is that they are explicitly about the literal COVID experience (e.g. hand washing, mask-wearing, pantless Zoom calls). They are films for “now.”

While I think you could easily classify It’s Been A While as a COVID film, from its small production size to the subjects it’s addressing, I like to think that what it’s saying about needing intimate connections to other people will resonate long after we’re able to go out into the world again.

Not bad for a 5 minute short predicated on a joke.

The synopsis of a film can often be a key indicator of whether that particular story will appeal to your particular taste. In the case of Luca Toth’s Lidérc úr (Mr. Mare), the excerpt prepares us for the weirdness within, but what it doesn’t allude to is the surprising emotional depth contained in its surreal storyline.

“I wanted to make a surrealistic movie about how someone falls in love”

When finding an unexpected lump on your body, I can’t imagine the sequence of nightmarish scenarios that play out in your mind. For the ‘young handsome man’ at the centre of Toth’s 20-minute short, an x-ray reveals the growth he discovers on his chest to be outside the usual diagnosis of this abnormality. Instead of the tumour, he might well have been expecting, our good-looking protagonist learns his swelling is, in fact, the crown of a tiny man’s bald little head.

The x-ray reveals the growth to be something totally unexpected.

Part body horror, part love story, Mr. Mare quickly switches from being about the man with the growth, to orbiting around the miniature being that is born from his body. As we witness him go about his daily chores of polishing the man’s giant shoes and sweeping his floors, we experience his infatuation with his host growing and though the film always maintains its unsettling tone, there are unexpected moments of tenderness within.

“I wanted to make a surrealistic movie about how someone falls in love”, Toth reveals as we discuss her motivation when making Mr. Mare. If that was her main aim, it certainly feels like she succeeded. Even outside of the unusual premise of her short, the dialogue-free, measured pacing makes it a short that stands out due to its approach and we haven’t even touched on Toth’s unmistakable aesthetic yet.

The contrast between the design of her characters is an interesting detail in her aesthetic.

A hand-drawn animation, the style is instantly recognisable as Toth’s – we touched on her aesthetic when we featured both her earlier shorts The Age of Curious and Superbia – while still managing to feel fresh and not just a reproduction of an already tried and tested approach. Full of texture, with a surprisingly tactile feel for a 2D animation, the character design was a particular favourite element of mine, especially the contrast between the ‘handsome man’ and his infatuated housemate – one chiselled and refined, the other lumpy and disproportionate.

“We follow the relationship of an oddly codependent pair”

A surreal chamber play with an unnerving and often claustrophobic feel, Toth should be congratulated for imbuing any sense of relatability within her film, but it’s there for anyone with an experience of unrequited love. “We follow the relationship of an oddly codependent pair”, the director explains when describing her film, before adding that her tiny man “doesn’t understand how he should be loved by his object of desire”. The situation is strange, but the themes oddly identifiable.

Having followed her work since she was an RCA graduate back in 2013, Mr. Mare is the third film (and probably my favourite) from Luca we’ve featured on S/W. With her work picking up nominations at Berlin and Cannes and awards at Annecy, she is a filmmaker who always excites and intrigues us at S/W, we can’t wait to see what surprises she has planned for her next film.

Corey is not doing ok! She spends all her time looking after others, while no one actually seems to notice the pain she’s in. Something’s gotta give. In Keep It Quiet, writer/director Yaya explores themes of depression and suicidality, through its main character’s struggles with mental health. By depicting her experience in a subtle yet emotionally engaging manner, the filmmaker sensitively tackles a weighty subject, whilst ensuring the audience can empathize and relate to the issues at hand.

Although the idea of creating a narrative dealing with these topics was at the forefront of Yaya’s creative process, it was in fact the on-screen depiction of suicidal characters that proved most inspirational in the development of Keep It Quiet. Recognising that these traits tended to be presented in a quite cliché fashion prompted the writer/director to bring a fresh perspective to the story, one more grounded in reality and which avoided the usual pitfalls in representing these characteristics.

“Veterinarians commit suicide at a rate 2-3 times higher than an average American” – Yaya explains why the film’s central character had to have a very specific profession.

Then, after a long research process, Yaya uncovered prevailing feelings from testimonies of suicide survivors that were key elements in building the character of Corey: “the feeling of isolation a suicidal person experiences even when surrounded by people, the tunnel vision and the urge of suicidality, and finally a need not so much to kill themselves as to enact a ritual of death, ultimately putting an end to seemingly endless pain”. The fact that the film’s main character is a veterinarian adds an extra level of authenticity to the piece, as the profession has a high suicide rate, compared to others.

In fact, the way the character of Corey is written, she feels like she could be someone we know, someone from real-life. The dynamics of her relationships, with family or at work, all subtly reflect both her loneliness and pain, while also showing the kind of person she is. All of which works to ultimately serve the narrative by increasing audience engagement. Alone, those sometimes very short interactions could feel insignificant, but as we piece them together they feel more and more like a psychological death by a thousand cuts.

Yaya also made some aesthetic choices which go against the often bleak imagery we are used to seeing in films dealing with mental illness. The heaviness of the topic is built with more subtle and immersive visual tools, such as the ratio and the framing of the shots. The space Corey occupies in the frame, and the composition of others truly echo her feeling of isolation. The sound design also plays an important part in immersing us in her experience. Through a minimalistic score, the film stays in a very realistic tone, while also allowing us to feel a numbness to the outside world.

Rusty Schwimmer’s performance as Corey is a key element in ensuring the story is successful

While benefiting from Yaya’s fresh and grounded approach, the film does rely heavily on our investment in Corey and thankfully Rusty Schwimmer’s performance is simply breathtaking. She instantly makes her character magnetizing, navigating her strength and her vulnerabilities with an impressive sensitivity. Her character’s battle with depression always feels genuine, never manipulative and she fleshes out Corey in a way that the audience never feels cheap pity for her, but instead empathize with her inner struggle.

Keep it Quiet won Best Live Action Short at the 35th Warsaw Film Festival, it was also selected at the Palm Springs ShortFest ahead of its online premiere here on S/W. Yaya is currently writing a comedic TV pilot, while also being at the writing stage of two short films, hoping to go into production on one soon.

An incredible real-life story, a distinct animated aesthetic, viral potential and an attention-grabbing title, Matthew Salton’s unusual documentary short Patty Are You Bringing Weed in from Jamaica? has everything needed to make it a successful online short (it was probably one of the easiest programming choices we had to make in 2020). The tale of one of the first female weed smugglers in the USA, PAYBWIFJ employs lurid visuals (described by a fellow S/Wer as a “touch terrifying”) to take its viewers on a psychedelic trip through the world of drug smuggling in the late ’60s.

“Honey, I’m old enough now, it doesn’t matter”

“She was sleeping in a house that had a large wolf as a pet”, Salton’s short was motivated by the experience of the director’s friend, who was working on a weed farm when she met Patty – the cook for the cannabis pickers. After discovering that “she might be the first woman weed smuggler”, Salton decided he had to meet her and flew down to California to hear what she had to say.

Though Patty had been approached to tell her story in the past, she hadn’t yet felt ready to divulge the details of her highly illegal adventures. Salton obviously picked the perfect time to ask however, as when he called to enquire whether she was open to sharing her story she simply replied: “Honey, I’m old enough now, it doesn’t matter”.

Salton found a deeper, relatable message in Patty’s story.

When they met in person, Salton was drawn to her “warm and hilarious” nature and though of course, he recognised the appeal in turning Patty’s crazy exploits into a film, he also recognised a more relatable element to her story. “It’s a story about a woman who’s driven and motivated to do her thing within this world that was all dominated by men”, the director explains as we discuss the motivation behind Patty Are You Bringing Weed in from Jamaica? .

“She was a messenger in a way, spreading this plant”

“There’s also something about this plant that made her take these risks”, Salton adds, exploring his deeper attraction to Patty’s story. “The Rastas trusted her to take this weed and spread it. It was important to her. So she was a messenger in a way, spreading this plant, crossing borders. She supplied her weed backstage at Woodstock with the musical acts and management behind the festival”

Although the tale at the heart of Salton’s documentary short is amazing in its own right, the filmmaker really brings Patty’s story to life with an animation that feels perfectly fitting for a film centred around a strain of marijuana of a “psychedelic potency unheard of in the US”. Consisting of photographs from the time, text on screen and warped vivid illustrations, it’s hard to think of a more suitable style for such a strange and intoxicating narrative.

Salton’s short was original planned to be B&W, before he opted to add colour at the end of production.

After editing the audio of the interview together into a framework for his film, Salton created the visuals himself, by hand-drawing them using a Cintiq and iPad. Adding the boil effect to create the wiggly line look of his animation, the film was originally planned to be black-and-white (like Salton’s previous S/W feature Richard Twice) before he eventually decided colour would be essential to the success of the film. Although he describes the process as “many many many hours at the end”, we’re really glad he opted for that garish palette in the end, as we couldn’t imagine the film without it.

If you’re a fan of Salton’s filmmaking, it’s certainly worth checking out more of his work on his Vimeo page below.

Anyone with twins in their family, or social circle, will probably already know about the very special connection they often share. A bond deeper than most us could understand, the potential for fierce rivalry is always lurking beneath the surface, with an intensity you wouldn’t find with your worst frenemy. These dynamics can be further elevated by parents who mean well, yet project their own aspirations, hopes and dreams onto their children, with questionable results. Alyssa McClelland’s Second Best depicts all of these aspects in a laconic dark comedy about adolescent identical twins Nouchka and Velika, and their Russian immigrant parents.

“I’m passionate about the darker comedy that thrives amongst the everyday”

While Nouchka is training hard, as a rhythmic gymnast under the rigorous guidance of her overbearing mother, her sister Velika has left her past as a gymnast behind to work in a local spa store with her taciturn father. The attentional focus of their ambitious mother, who’s own self-worth stems from the accomplishments of her daughters, is made clear, as is the dichotomy in the sister’s respective lifestyles – until one fateful day, both of their careers take an unexpected turn.

McClelland admits she wanted to explore “the complex and unmatchable twin connection” in Second Best.

Second Best draws its peculiar humor from the brilliantly constrained performances of its entire cast and the perceptive script, co-written by Simone Moessinger. “I’m passionate about the darker comedy that thrives amongst the everyday and strays just an inch from reality”, writer/director McClelland explains to S/W as we discuss the aspirations of her short.

Convinced that “familial love is the perfect thematic foundation for this type of comedy to thrive”, the filmmaker was keen to point out the personal decision behind picking this particular family dynamic. “My mother was a fraternal twin incredibly close to her sister – this film is dedicated to her – my best friend throughout high school was an identical twin and I dated an identical twin for 5 years. Needless to say I have a thing for twins. I had long wanted to make a darkly comedic film that delved into their shared stories and explores the complex and unmatchable twin connection.“

Despite the dry comedic tone of Second Best, McClelland takes her characters seriously, treating them like fully-fledged human beings, even though some of them display very odd characteristics. When we shake our head at the ridiculousness of the “hot-shot“ employee-of-the-month, his disproportionate arrogance is laughable to us as an audience, but we can also empathize with Velika and her co-worker Matt in their dislike of their preposterous colleague.

The director says it was “wonderful” to shoot in the 2.66:1 ratio, citing a desire to “let scenes play out in the wide, with characters coming and going”.

Shot in a 2.66:1 aspect ration, the wide frame of the film emphasizes how the characters seem to be lost in the mundane absurdity of their surroundings – the shot of Velika and her father eating together in the middle of their living room couch, a prime example. The sterile emptiness of the salesroom setting reflects the bored hollowness of Velika’s own daily routine, stuck in a job that she seems to endure with defeated stoicism. While the bleak gymnasium in which Nouchka competes has a depressing veneer about it that feels like it is intended to slowly suck the enthusiasm and spirit out of promising young people.

It’s particularly remarkable how Second Best uses dialogue sparsely and trusts in the restrained physicality of the actors, along with a confident use of silence and some prudent sound design and music, to tell its story. As with most families, the film knows that even though some things are never clearly articulated, the subtext is discernible between the lines of each interaction and in what is left unsaid.

After blowing our woolly socks off with her craft in the warm and fuzzy But Milk is Important and making us cry with laughter in the darkly-comic Enough, fans of Anna Mantzaris will be happy to learn that this director’s talents continue to shine in her latest animated short Good Intentions. The eight-minute stop-motion, completed as her graduation film at the Royal College of Art, is a tale both laden with ominous atmosphere and disarming charm, all at once. It is also entirely consistent with Mantzaris’ homespun aesthetic, which persistently delights audiences and offers a two-fingered salute to the genre’s CGI contemporaries.

“I was interested in the concept of ghosts, if they can be more things than a dead person”

When a young woman causes a car accident and she flees the scene of the crime, her guilty conscience, over leaving the other driver behind, starts to eat away at her and she soon becomes a shadow of her former self. Good Intentions may first appear to be aimed at a younger audience, but don’t let the cutesy puppets and quirky set design fool you, this is a short filled with as much tension and mystery as you’d expect from any quality live-action thriller. If not more…

“I wanted to make something more thriller-like and ambiguous” – Mantzaris on her inspiration for Good Intentions

“Originally, I was interested in the concept of ghosts, if they can be more things than a dead person. Like if you can become a ghost of who you used to be, if someone can be a “living ghost”. And I was also curious about the idea of guilt and how it can sometimes be worse than the real action” – Mantzaris shared with S/W – “That’s how the idea started and I wrote it together with my boyfriend.”

I am a huge fan of Mantzaris’ work, and I must admit that after the huge success and mass appeal of her first two shorts, I was a little bit doubtful about whether she’d be able to rise to those great heights once again. Thankfully, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finished Good Intentions, because it was indeed as good, if not better, than I had hoped. Though that sigh might have also been provoked by the fact the short was so intense and at times downright scary, I watched almost the entire thing with bated breath.

Rather than being weighed down by the pressure of her success, Mantzaris seems to have used it as a leverage to take her craft and knack for dialogue-free storytelling to the next level. It’s as if she handpicked the best parts of her work thus far, and interweaved them together in Good Intentions – a method that has paid off in spades.

“This was the first film where I worked with a small crew” – Mantzaris explaining how she created the distinct aesthetic for her film.

The director’s genius for production design comes to the fore (I imagine that having worked on Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs may have helped too). The sets are elaborate treasure troves, filled with enough Easter Eggs and tiny, quirky creations for Mantzaris’ fans to feast their eyes on, time and time again. There is also the intriguing oddity of delving into a very grownup issue, something we saw glimpses of in But Milk is Important, using the adorable lightheartedness of Enough and the perfectly imperfect puppets that have become the director’s signature.

It’s an oddity that in theory may be doomed to fall between the sensibilities of adults and children, yet Mantzaris has somehow managed to preserve and extend the innocence and enamour of her handiwork, and shaped it into something positively spooky. The result has its plush feet firmly grounded in the gloomy world of adulthood, with just the right amount of charm and imagination to pull at the heartstrings.

After premiering at the 2018 BFI London Film Festival, Good Intentions has been screened at over 130 film festivals around the world. Mantzaris was also handpicked to work on the prestigious John Lewis 2020 Christmas Advert.

One afternoon, Alex and his father meet up with friends in the forest. What seems like a casual playdate quickly takes an unsettling turn when six-year-old Alex slowly pieces together what his father, and the other adults, are there to do. Set in the not-so-distant future, Pier-Philippe Chevigny’s Recrue (Rebel) explores the father/son bond in the context of a far-right militia group, as the son starts to understand the darker side of the person who lovingly cares for him daily.

“Rebel is about that moment of realization”

The inspiration behind writer/director Chevigny’s short will comes as no surprise, as the world experiences a rise of right-wing extremism. But in Quebec, a province that has for years leant towards the left, the recent migrant crisis, exacerbated by the Trump administration, lead to the rise of far-right anti-immigration groups with radical agendas, and even the creation of militias and citizen patrols.

“That whole phenomenon was really worrying to me and I began doing a lot of research” Chevigny explains. What truly sparked the idea for the film though, was when the director saw a photograph of a kid holding a sign, at a rally thrown by one of those groups, used in the press. Exploring right-wing extremism through the innocent point of view of a child, whose understanding of the situation gets suddenly triggered, became the lens Chevigny chose to frame the issue through, without demonizing the partisans of such ideas. “Rebel is about that moment of realization” he tells us while discussing the film.

That’s where Rebel actually separates itself from all the other films dealing with this situation. I’d like to think that we all have the same opinion on what happens over that fateful afternoon, so discussing the event feels like a moot point. Instead, Chevigny’s narrative is more of a coming-of-age story, where he chooses to infuse a little hope at the end – which, I won’t lie, we all need a little bit of right now.

“The idea was to really make sure to put the viewer in the child’s perspective” – Chevigny on his production methods employed in Rebel

Throughout Rebel, Chevigny places the audience in Alex’s perspective, which really works to divide the film into two parts – his life before he sees his father’s true colours, and his life after he learns the truth. To set the distinction, Chevigny made careful aesthetic choices, paying attention to minor details that at first may seem inconsequential, but all contributing to our general understanding of the situation.

In the first part, we are introduced to Alex through the natural perspective of a six-year-old. Chevigny resorts to tight framing to echo his reduced understanding of his life, the images focus on where his mind is at, and the rest is blurry, almost disorienting. His dad is introduced as a loving, fun and caring father and as the afternoon unfolds, just like Alex, we don’t really know what’s going on.

Chevigny introduces subtle elements so that we can slowly piece together the purpose of the forest outing, without being ever convinced of its purpose. When the games start, from Alex’s perspective there is no tension, only good fun, but that changes when he stumbles upon a family hiding in the trees.

As Alex becomes conscious of what his father and his friends are doing his perspective begins to change

The camera movements reflect his sudden change of perception and as the lens slowly widens we get a clearer picture of the situation, with nothing left out of focus anymore. With a slow escalation, we witness Alex becoming conscious of what his father and his friends are doing and more importantly, the consequences of their actions. Through his connection with the family’s daughter, we even start to detect a potential sense of guilt, maybe even shame and as that final scene at home offers a sense of symmetry with the opening one, we truly begin to grasp just how much has changed in only one afternoon.

Rebel premiered at the 2019 edition of TIFF and has since gone on to be selected at multiple festivals including Clermont-Ferrand and Regard. It is currently in consideration for the 2021 Best Live Action Short Oscar having won a qualifying award in Tirana. Chevigny is currently working on his first feature titled Richelieu, hoping to go into production during the summer of 2021, while also being in the writing stages of another feature, Arsenal, about police brutality against the LGBTQ+ community.

An experimental thriller that plays much like a horror film and provides a lesson in dread, Aaron Poole’s stylishly atmospheric directorial debut, Oracle, takes ordinary and familiar imagery and transforms them into a fear-inducing fever dream. A distinct departure from traditional narrative and far from our regular fare on S/W, Poole’s unique exploration of what plagues our childhood psyche is an unnerving experience to behold.

“I wanted to experiment with simple story objects that required the audience to lean in and connect the dots”

Centred around a child’s internalization of the upending feeling caused by home renovations and a lack of his parent’s attention, throughout Oracle, Poole uses everyday sights and sounds and morphs them into childhood terrors. The sound of a saw machine is reflected in an ominous score that echoes like a drone. Meanwhile, a blue night light turns into what would be just a balloon, had it not been floating in the darkness toward the little boy with such sinister intent.

“I wanted to experiment with simple story objects that required the audience to lean in and connect the dots,” Poole explains to Short of the Week. Experimenting with a short running time and minimal dialogue the director sought out to “make a sort of visual puzzle that could inspire feelings of both awe and dread”.

Oracle was inspired by a recurring dream of an infinite abyss director/writer, Aaron Poole had as a child.

Poole describes the experiences in this experimental film as a “fever dream” and it’s in this half-awake state that the boy begins to understand the world around him. So what appears to be a nightmare on the surface, is really a child’s growing awareness of his surroundings and the anxiety that it causes when he finds himself on his own. In this way, Oracle could be considered a coming-of-age thriller, had it not been for the second half of the film.

***SPOILER WARNING***

Poole’s attention to detail is quite impressive. As the tension picks up, he lures us into what appears to be another dimension, increasing our nervousness with every sudden cut or slight adjustment to the sound design. While we all recognize the soft thudding noise of a balloon colliding against another surface, Poole employs this simple sound to create a moment that causes the viewer unexpected stress.

For most of the film, there’s nothing overtly scary about any of the familiar imagery, and yet, it’s hard not to feel trapped in the little boy’s night terror, with the sound design and visuals working in tandem to lead us into a nerve-shredding final crescendo. “The sound scape, design, and foley were carefully composed and calibrated for another month [after filming] with the generous support of Academy Award-nominated SoundDogs, composers Blitz//Berlin and Technicolor Toronto,” Poole reveals. 

Oracle had an impressive festival run – with its world premiere at TIFF

But it’s within the stillness and quiet that follows that Poole strikes with something truly hair-raising. It’s this scene, almost at the end, that made me physically push myself away from my screen with a very loud mental “nope”. Because to a child, all shadows move in the dark and, now, they move for us too.

World premiering at TIFF, Oracle won the Grand Prix Short Film In the national competition at Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma, had its US premiere at Slamdance, and screened at both Palm Springs International Short Fest and Busan International Short Film Festival. Poole is currently working towards his first feature DADA and we can’t wait to see it!

Three years ago, Natalie scored a session with an influential music producer. In the post #MeToo era, what happened that Sunday at the studio doesn’t feel that out of the ordinary. Now given the opportunity to confront her abuser on live TV, it makes her realize that even though things have changed, those in the wrong found a way to bounce back. In Real Talk, writer/director Artemis Shaw uses satire to explore the insidious side of a PR system, which has adapted to the new normal, by turning these events into theatrics ready for consumption.

When #MeToo was gaining momentum and started to finally be taken seriously, public apologies started becoming a common practice, as many abusers tried to use them to prevent their impending cancellation. Shaw tells us that she actually saved all those apologies (a folder of screenshots), as they were released via social media.

“You could study the different tactics accused abusers took to seed a future comeback”

“These apologies all had dramatic irony sewn into them”, she explains, “they were explicitly created for an audience, and not the victim”. A pattern appeared in those statements as she kept on tracking them and Shaw believes that “you could study the different tactics accused abusers took to seed a future comeback, without ever actually admitting to any wrong-doing.”

The disturbing manipulative effects of the PR machine and the fact that women who have spoken out have to perform their story again and again, lead her to depict this situation with a satirical angle. At first, the film might appear to tackle its subject a bit too “head-on”, but through its farcical approach, Real Talk brings a new perspective to the issue and ultimately makes its impact more powerful.

With her over-the-top premise, Shaw also efficiently exposes how complicit we, as avid consumers of pop culture, are in perpetuating these narratives. The satire allows her to push the ridiculousness of the situation to its maximum. Focusing on how survivors navigate both their reality, and the PR machine created out of their story, makes the different stages of the packaging of a sexual abuse story as a pop culture item quite undeniable.

The screenplay and production also play a big role in putting the focus on the media’s representation of these stories, with Real Talk’s narrative cleverly unfolding from two perspectives – Natalie’s individual viewpoint and that of the daytime TV show. When witnessing events through the lens of the chat show format, we see it through a daytime TV aesthetic with vibrant colors, dramatic camera movements, flattering angles and soft lighting…it all feels manipulative.

Real Talk employs two different shooting styles with a strong emotional contrast

Switch to Natalie’s perspective and her reality feels much more overwhelming. Focusing on the details which show the imperfections the TV camera purposely attempts to hide, it truly becomes disturbing when the theatrics become obvious. Through the audience reactions, the language the producer uses to apologize and all those cliche quotes the host uses (made more infuriating by the fact that she’s a woman), as a viewer, we feel as helpless to stop the events as Natalie herself.

With all this in mind, Shaw needed to find the perfect climax to ensure her short landed its impact and she found it by concluding her story with having an obviously uncomfortable Natalie forced to perform her song, with those stupid graphics behind her, to the show’s audience. However, it’s Real Talk’s last scene that truly did it for me. The complete dehumanization of her story, proving that yep…she goes back to her life, as if nothing happened – a truly depressing depiction of “the show must go on”.

Finally, it would feel unjust if I finished this article without commending the work of Sarah Steele as Natalie. While the whole film lives in a satirical tone, it all works because her performance is so genuinely compelling. She navigates her character’s emotions with a poignant sensitivity, showing her strength, vulnerabilities and authentic reactions to what is happening. I was genuinely moved by how it is mostly through her eyes that we understand how she is feeling inside.

We are happy to welcome back Artemis Shaw to S/W, having already featured her previous short documentary Single Room Occupancy, which she co-directed with Alexander W. Lewis. Shaw is now currently in post-production of her first feature film as a producer, Have a Nice Life.

The more time I spend curating for this site, the more I realize the futility of establishing a rubric for why a short film works. As I’m the one who wrote this article for the site, I’m fully aware of my own hypocrisy. But, in trying to critically analyze short film (or all cinema for that matter), it often comes down to this: did it move you? Did it stick with you? And, when it comes to Kieran Thompson’s Wish You Were There, the simple answer to those questions is “yes.”

I won’t make excuses for what this film is not. It’s not fast paced (it’s almost defiantly the opposite). It’s not conceptually innovative (the subject matter, which I won’t reveal until a spoiler section below, is quite well-tread). There’s no immediate “hook” or “buy in.” But, somehow, whether it be the subtle but warm performances or the simple, but well-crafted filmmaking, Thompson is able to create something that is quite lovely. I use that word—lovely—deliberately as it captures the graceful way in which the film tackles its central relationship with a delicate nuance that never drifts into sappy Notebook-esque melodrama. It’s a fine line and, although the film flirts with cliché, it never quite tips-toes across it.

***SPOILER WARNING***

I called the “twist” of the film early. And, I don’t say that as a way to humble-brag my intelligence (the converse is often true as I’m the usually a person that is behind a film). Rather, I mention it because I don’t think the film—like so many “reveal” shorts—is dependent on the twist to work. Rather, it’s a subtle and slow build to show how devastating the effects of memory loss can be for a relationship: from the thrilling high of rediscovering the original person you fell in love with to the crushing blow of realizing that person suddenly views you as a stranger. Although there is a weepy moment at the end, it comes not from the person you’d expect (the caretaker), but rather the one with the condition. It perfectly encapsulates the frustration that comes with the powerlessness of the ailment.

The film gets the particulars right: a look of disappointment conveys more than pages worth of dialogue. Is the set-up a bit manipulative? Perhaps. But, again it’s a fine line and I come down on the film effectively being able to evoke emotional resonance.

Wish You Were There was created as part of a series of shorts made in partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum.

Wish You Were There was created as a part of a series of shorts made in partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum in celebration of its 60th anniversary. Although the museum’s celebratory year was dampened by COVID (the museum was closed through the majority of 2020), the primary goal of the film series—to represent the broad spectrum of people, art, and experiences at the museum—still comes through.

As Thompson relates to Short of the Week:

With a new take on smartphone addiction and a fresh twist on the screenlife perspective, Martijn Winkler’s #eyewitness immerses its audience in Karim’s eventful afternoon, as he witnesses a crime and inadvertently puts himself in danger. A 13-minute short where the phone is really the main character, we follow the incident and its aftermath through a series of interactions and notifications on Karim’s mobile, as he reviews the footage he shot throughout the afternoon and realises he is holding evidence of the crime in his camera roll. 

“I love what I can do with it, but hate who I become when I use it”

Part of a series titled Swipe, #eyewitness is one of seven episodes dealing with the role smartphones play in the daily lives of millennials. A topic most of us can relate to, director Winkler admits having a “love/hate relationship” relationship with his mobile, explaining “I love what I can do with it, but hate who I become when I use it”.

Whether we have it under control or are completely addicted, cellphone usage is a major part of our everyday lives, and its the now commonplace role of these handheld devices that fueled Winkler’s inspiration for the series: “How does real-life interconnect with the virtual life on the phone?”, he asks as we discuss his motivation to tackle these subjects. In #eyewitness that theme is explored in a situation where the phone becomes a key element in a potential investigation.

“Are we in control, or do our devices control us?” – a question Winkler wanted to explore in #eyewitness.

The omnipresence of the phone’s screen is, of course, a realistic way of portraying modern life, but the screenlife angle is hardly a new format. Although it’s not the first screenlife short we can think of, Walter Woodman and Patrick Cederberg’s 2013 film Noah was a groundbreaker in the subgenre at the time and the style of that short has been replicated many times since.

However, the novelty in #eyewitness lies in the fact that the film is not entirely set on the phone’s screen, but instead presented from the perspective of whoever is holding and using Karim’s mobile. The device is always shown front and center, making it the focus of the film and echoing its importance, for many of us, in how we see the world around us.

With the significance of the phone reinforced by having the real environment shown in the background, out of focus, this works to not only install a real point-of-view experience for the audience, but also to highlight how obsessed we can become with our devices. We all know how focused we can be on our screens, leaving the life outside of them just a blurry peripheral vision at times, the novel perspective employed in#eyewitness perfectly captures that “gaze”, while allowing us to get a little distance to appreciate the grasp our phones have on us.

Whilst Karim’s phone is an ever-present through the short, we rarely see his face.

With a central character who is almost never on screen, #eyewitness does an excellent job of generating real empathy for Karim and the predicament he is in. Usually, it is with close-ups that films get their audiences emotionally engaged, but here it is through the sound design that we are taken on the emotional ride, along with Karim.

The visual format of the film provides an organic reason to have real-life sounds, as aurally we’re presented with noises of what is happening around Karim. His breathing, panting at times, combined with his vocal reactions to his IRL interactions with people, creates an immediate intimacy and a sense of real urgency through the film. It all contributes to making this, one of the most realistic on-screen depictions of how we use our phones, I have ever seen. It almost has the same immersive sensation as playing a video game.

“Every move, every swipe and type, was rehearsed extensively”

With Winkler keen to stress that there were “no VFX used in this film”, the question of how they made #eyewitness is almost as interesting as the film itself. With a 4K camera (with huge lens) rigged to a smartphone, each scene is a one-shot take, which may have made the editing process simpler, but on the day of the shoot, everything was meticulously rehearsed.

Describing the process as like choreographing a dance, “every move, every swipe and type, was rehearsed extensively”, the director explains. With several mobile phones operated behind the scenes by a social media team, the production of #eyewitness sounds like a logistical nightmare with no room for errors. I guess that’s the price they had to pay for the extreme authenticity of the film.

Winkler is currently working on two new projects. Writing feature film Headliner, which he describes as a paranoia satire of our media-infused world, whilst also finalizing post-production of a new drama series called Heat – a climate-change thriller.

A film about nicknames, differences and animosity, Simon Pontén and Joakim Behrman’s surreal dark-comedy The Owl uses a bizarre and twisted (literally) incident to tackle how quickly individuals can bond together over a shared hatred or disgust of something. Described by its co-creators as a “slow cataclysmic journey into the dark core of humans trying to have a good time together”, this eight-minute short highlights how quickly a little bit of fun can descend into something much more sinister and disturbing.

Opening with a rather deep conversation about our relationship with death, for the teachers relaxing in their staff room at work, their day is about to take an unexpected diversion when the titular “Owl” enters the scene. Goaded into demonstrating his admittedly unsettling “party trick”, from which his nickname derives, the mood takes a dark turn when his colleagues react badly to his reveal, labelling him a “freak” and “some kind of monster”. Even if the film’s title may give a few too many clues to what is about to happen, it doesn’t make it any less effective.

“We made it because of our soft spot for social situations gone bad”

With the premise of The Owl originating after co-director Behrman bought a paper owl statue at a flea market, the directorial duo admit they were drawn to the storyline because of a “soft spot for social situations gone bad”. A dark-comedy, with an emphasis on the dark (I think I’ve used the term “dark” in every paragraph so far, so that’ll give you an idea of how…well…dark things get!), although The Owl orbits around an absurd incident, the genuine setting and authentic performances result in the film have a real-world impact.

Though at first, watching the actions of the Owl you may also be somewhat unnerved by what you’ve witnessed, Pontén and Behrman cleverly proceed this with an equally upsetting scene, as his colleagues round on him with a collective fury which quickly threatens to get out of hand. Research has shown that people tend to band together when shared negative emotions are involved and this is certainly the case with the shocked teachers in The Owl. Though they provoke their reluctant colleague to reveal his “stunt”, through cries of “Uggla, Uggla, Uggla” (Swedish for Owl), the moment he is exposed they turn on him like a pack of wolves, feeding on the revulsion of each other, hungry for retribution.

“That was the most vile thing that I have ever seen” – a colleague reacts to the incident.

It makes for a powerful watch. At first, it feels like a film served only by its twist (again, that feels like such a perfect word in this instance), but the mixture of emotions it provokes means there’s more depth to it than that. The Owl is labelled a monster, but like some of the most famous beasts from storytelling (King Kong, Frankenstein’s Monster) we empathise with him and are haunted by his treatment. Who are characters we should be frightened of here? A man with an unusual physical trait or the “mob” who can only deal with this difference by attacking him? I know whose side I’m on…”Uggla, Uggla, Uggla” (those are cries of support!).

Shot on Alexa mini and cut on Adobe Premiere, The Owl is a fine-looking film, full of impressive performances. Pontén and Behrman look to continue working together on their next short Inferno, a film they describe as “still focusing on people trying to have a good time, but failing miserably”.

Released on World AIDS Day and premiering on S/W after an impressive festival run which saw it pick-up nominations at Anima and Annecy, and awards at Anima Mundi and Chicago International Film Festival, Sangro (I Bleed) is an insightful and emotive animated short examing the confusing emotions of a person living with HIV. Created by Tiago Minamisawa, Bruno H Castro and Guto BR (co-director) and described by Minamisawa as a “healing process for my boyfriend Caioh Deroci”, who the film is inspired by, mixed-media animation is employed to visualise the confessions of the narrator, as they openly reveal their fear of what the stigmatization of the virus could cause to their life.

“I thought I would be dead by now”

Opening with the line “I thought I would be dead by now” (voiced by Deroci), seven-minute short I Bleed details the thought-process of a person as they comes to terms with living with HIV. Following their journey as they becoming isolated (claiming they felt like they were “the virus itself”), before finding new meaning in life, as the narrator asks “how do you see me? We’re forced to question our views on those suffering with HIV, as I Bleed presents us with a very personal perspective.

Providing partner Deroci with an opportunity to share the experience of living with HIV, Minamisawa explains (in conversation with S/W) how hopes the short will help others who still need to keep their situation secret. “I wanted to create a film that could talk to people from all over the world and convey a message of overcoming and valuing life”, the filmmaker explains as we discuss the motivation behind I Bleed. “The film also proposes to talk about HIV without stigmatization and prejudice, updating the discourse about the virus to a more contemporary perspective”.

Hieronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights acts as an usual backdrop for most of Minamisawa’s short

Narratively, I Bleed feels like an important film, but its engaging nature lies not only in its subject but also in its craft. Brought to screen through what Minamisawa describes as “experimental animation language with hybrid techniques”, the short uses a classical painting, 2D animation and stop-motion to visualise its story.

“We used the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch as a way of illustrating the character’s path through hell, purgatory and heaven”, Minamisawa reveals as we discuss how the trio of filmmakers used this classic piece of art to symbolizing the character’s transitions after discovering that he is living with HIV. Adding to Bosch’s original imagery by layering 2D animation on top (making it possibly the best background design ever seen in animation?), I Bleed combines this distinct aesthetic with more traditional animation, this time on the pages of old books.

With its thought-provoking content and striking aesthetic, it’s easy to see why I Bleed proved so popular on the festival circuit. Minamisawa is now working on a new stop-motion short titled Kabuki – we’ll bring you more details of that when we have them.

Following the success of her award-winning, Oscar-nominated film 妹妹 (Sister), Siqi Song returns to S/W with another short brimming with cultural insight, family traditions and of course, that recognisable stop-motion style. Where her previous film focused on what it was like to grow up with a sibling during the height of China’s One-Child Policy, her latest short 硬币(The Coin) centres around her family’s New Year’s Eve tradition and the comforting thought of home, when you’re far from it.

“After moving to the United States a few years ago, I experienced all sorts of culture shocks”

On Chinese New Year, finding the coin hidden in a dumpling (Jiaozi) brings good luck. In The Coin, we follow a girl and her jar of lucky coins as they leave home and journey to a new country. After leaving her collection of charmed currency on a train in her new homeland, the girl starts to suffer from unsettling feelings in her stomach, is this anxiety? Homesickness? Or something else?

“After moving to the United States a few years ago, I experienced all sorts of culture shocks”, Song explains as we discuss the inspiration behind The Coin. “With my mind experiencing the same digestive problems as my stomach, as it encounters the exotic food, I find myself looking for familiar food, in the hope that it will bring me back to the moment of comfort when I found the coin in it. This thought gave me the idea to use food as the visual representation of the story I want to convey, a story about trying to connect with the past in order to move on”.

The dumpling (Jiaozi) plays a central in Song’s personal and relatable narrative.

Just shy of seven minutes in length, despite the plot appearing somewhat thin on surface level, The Coin manages to pack a lot into its tight run-time. Through a simple story of a young woman leaving her childhood home, Song manages to pepper her narrative with family history, cultural traditions, personal insight and relatable emotions. Again, there’s surprising depth for a tale of a girl and a jar of coins.

With the success of its narrative debatable (these things are always subjective), one thing that surely isn’t under question is the strength of the craft showcased in The Coin. Though we’ve seen this woolly stop-motion style several times before – Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels’ Oh Willy… feeling like the real prototype for the style – Song laces her aesthetic with enough individual flair (having the facial expressions of her characters added with hand-drawn animation really amplifies their reactions and emotions) and standout moments (the woolly soup and giant burger are particular favourites of mine) to make it her own.

A graduate of China’s Central Academy of Fine Art and CalArts, The Coin confirms Song as one of the most exciting new voices in the world of animation. With her meticulous craft and distinct voice, we can’t wait for her next short – is it too early to call it a “real favourite” of mine?