Short of the Week

Play
Drama Sarah Veltmeyer
ma

Kiem Holijanda

When teenager Andi discovers a card of a Dutch porn star in the bedroom he shares with his brother, his obsession to get a phone and access the X-rated content means he doesn’t notice that his brother has chosen this day to say goodbye to him.

Play
Drama Sarah Veltmeyer
ma

Kiem Holijanda

When teenager Andi discovers a card of a Dutch porn star in the bedroom he shares with his brother, his obsession to get a phone and access the X-rated content means he doesn’t notice that his brother has chosen this day to say goodbye to him.

Kiem Holijanda

Weight loss, career progression, money – we all have goals that we feel will improve our lives in some fashion. Sometimes these targets can become all-consuming and we lose sight of the bigger picture, our blinkered vision stopping us from seeing what is happening right under our noses. For Andi, the young protagonist in Sarah Veltmeyer’s award-winning short Kiem Holijanda he’s desperate to get his hands on a smartphone and unlock the limitless wonders of the internet. Unfortunately, his obsession has blinded him from the life-changing decision his brother Florist has just made.

Set in a barren village in Kosovo, Veltmeyer’s story (co-written by Tom Bakker) follows 13-year-old Andi as he goes door-to-door selling milk, trying to earn enough money to support his struggling family. Despite the financial restrictions in his household, he is still a teenager and still has the wants and needs of any young adult – his current obsession raising enough money to buy a phone and access the five-minutes of free x-rated content advertised on a card he found in the bedroom he shares with his brother.

SARAH VELTMEYER KIEM HOLIJANDA

The main characters in Kiem Holijanda are played by real-life brothers Andi & Florist Bajgora

A coming-of-age story with an emotional kicker, initially Kiem Holijanda captivates with its stark setting, but soon the characters and their story take over and we instead become fascinated with their lives. The sibling bond between Andi and his older brother Florist feels so genuine (the actors are brothers in real life, they even kept the same names for the film) there’s no struggle to believe in the authenticity of their relationship and we quickly lose ourselves in this tale of brotherhood.

The brothers are central to the story, but there’s another key element to the narrative, that leads both brothers in different directions – the telephone. Almost feeling like a character itself, for both of them the phone offers a form of escape from their life in the village and their limited future prospects. For Andi he’s obsessed with accessing porn via the mobile and having five-minutes of escapism with the titular Kim. For Florist, the phone offers a more permanent means of escape – as we hear him, via phonecall, arranging to cross the border and leave the village for good.

In Andi, Veltmeyer has created a character you really care for and engage with.

In Andi, Veltmeyer has created a character you really care for and engage with.

Relatability is key when it comes to engaging with stories and with her young protagonist Veltmeyer has created a character its hard not believe in, and feel for. Initially, we snigger at his determination for his first experience of porn (we all probably remember our own exposure to x-rated content?) but as the film ends and we’re left with the sobering image of Andi sobbing on his bed, his quest for a phone finally realised, but his brother gone (possibly forever), the heartache feels so real it’s hard not to be moved. Great shorts often leave you wondering what happened to their characters beyond the duration of the film, and this is certainly the case with Kiem Holijanda.

Veltmeyer’s second short, Kiem Holijanda had an impressive festival run and picked up a Crystal Bear award for ‘Best Short Film’ as part of the Generation 14plus Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2018. Her third short Never Forget  – the story of two adolescent girls trapped on a balcony while a group of boys wait for them at the carnival – is still on the festival circuit and will hopefully be online sometime in the not-too-distant future.