Short of the Week
For film fans, the highlight of March is undoubtedly the Oscars and for those of us immersed in the realm of short films we were particularly keen to see where the Academy lands in selecting the “best” short films of the last year. As the awards were announced, on March 10th, we were excited to see S/W alum Ben Proudfoot walk away with the Best Documentary Short Film award, again, after winning it with his film The Queen of Basketball in 2022. If you’re yet to catch up on all the short film winners, we put together a round-up shortly after they were announced.
March is also an exciting time in the festival calendar, with SXSW kicking off in the second week of the month. Once again the 2024 line-up included a number of S/W alums, in both the short and feature film sections. From end of the world action movies starring Nicola Cage to horror films about nuns, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more from these films in the rest of 2024. – Rob Munday, Managing Editor
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Team Favorites
While we spotlighted just 14 films during March’s 31 days, our selection may have been limited in quantity, but it certainly wasn’t lacking in quality. Throughout the month, we were privileged to showcase a range of impressive shorts, from the works of legendary Japanese directors to the creations of emerging genre artists, the diversity of talent featured on S/W during March is evident in our Best of the Month picks:
a90 by Olivia J. Middleton
A subtle and nuanced short, A90 allows its audience to feel the emotions shared between its central couple through their chemistry and tension, rather than through their dialogue or actions. Rarely have we seen a romance develop on screen so efficiently, with so little actually happening. Every single line they exchange is emotionally charged and the way the camera places them in the frame works to enhance the immersive nature of the film. Letting us feel what both are experiencing, engaging us in the moment they are sharing and its inevitable end.
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Play Me by Caleb Phillips
A gripping psychological thriller that keeps you on edge for the duration of its 11-minute runtime, writer and director Caleb Philips (Other Side of the Box) proves you don’t need much to pull off a sophisticated scare. When a woman wakes up with no memory and a man tied up in the backseat of her car, all she can rely on is a mysterious tape recorder with her own voice to tell her what to do next. An ominous bite-size horror, Philips masters the art of dread and hints at a storyverse that feels much bigger than the world on screen in his latest short film Play Me.
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Ur Heinous Habit by Eugene Kolb
Inspired by an email scam that found its way into his inbox, director Eugene Kolb created Ur Heinous Habit – a cheeky animated documentary that dives into the intersection of shame and pleasure through a series of zoom conversations. Told through a series of brilliantly illustrated characters, which also work to conceal the identities of the interviewees, this fourteen-minute short holds an introspective magnifying glass to our sexual routines and the result is delightful and thought-provoking in equal measures.
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Shortverse Best of the Month
Click on the image to see the best short films added to Shortverse in March 2024
If you’re looking for more Best of the Month action, then head over to Shortverse, where the team has selected a further 11 titles, from the March uploads, to champion. From a new Jim Cummings short to a family-friendly short highlighting the joys of the written language, there’s something for young and old (and everyone inbetween) in this collection.