Short Film Reviews
Design studio Art & Graft have injected a welcome sense of humour into 1150 Canyon Road, a dark and stylish crime animation. The London-based animation team, led by creative director Mike Moloney, have done a stunning job of throwing together a narrative and several brilliant characters in just two and a half minutes and a single shot. Combining the paranoid, ’80s crime caper themes of L.
“A Cajun devil hunter goes to the crossroads and meets the devil’s attorney”. The compelling summary of Chasseur had me hooked before I even started watching, let alone the mesmerising central performance from the film’s writer and director, Christopher Soren Kelly. An unconventional structure, perhaps, but a successful one.
Terrance is a documentary short made by Joris Debeij and forms part of a series of films (I Am Los Angeles) that focus on the stories of people who live in Los Angeles. Terrance documents the life of the young black teenager, Terrance Thompson, his losses, and his resulting depression. All things going to plan, Terrance Thompson will have graduated high school by the time you read this review.
Five Minutes is an interactive short horror film set in a future where the world is overrun with zombies. After being infected, dad John knows he only has five minutes before he turns. But he is loathe to leave his daughter, Mia.
Chicagoland Shorts is a new series of films curated by Eugene Sun Park and Kayla Ginsburg (with the aid of Beckie Stocchetti). The series pulls together an eclectic mix of shorts all made by Chicago-based filmmakers. The films range from original narratives to real stories, from animations to found footage pieces (those made using pre-existing film or photographs).
Hereafter is a short supernatural film written and directed by Johnny Kenton. The product of a Kickstarter campaign, the film is about a young woman named Katcher (Lydia Wilson), who is called up to try out for a group called ‘The Guardians’. Who are they guarding?
Super Zero is a short by the filmmaker Mitchell L. Cohen. The story centres around Josh Hershberg, a young guy with not much to live for who discovers he has terminal cancer.
From ideation to financing, distribution to production, the movie industry is just that, an industry. Let’s take a peek behind the projectors and movie screens at all facets of the films, and the people behind them, that we love. Let me direct your attention to these wonderful shorts.
Silo is a short film made by the filmmaker David Soll and starring Chris Green. Like many short films Silo is a silent piece (without dialogue but not without sound). But unlike many shorts, which like to take a brief and artistic approach to a story, Silo has been made with a clearly structured narrative.
In honour of NASA’s successful Orion launch, it’s only fitting that we should take a look at Wanderers, a short speculative science fiction film by Erik Wernquist. Pioneers. Explorers.
Animism is the belief that inanimate objects have souls. In a way, it’s self-reflective as people often project themselves upon many things. Many movies share this view as produced by such companies as Disney and Pixar.
The road of the motherless child is long and hard. So is the process of watching Hitch Hike, a short film about a teenage boy hitching a lift to find his birth mother. Although writer and director Matthew Saville’s story has the potential to be a powerful message that touches on a very real social issue, he shoots far too wide of the mark for any meaningful impact.
Everybody takes break-ups differently. Some people get a dog, others will join the gym, and a few people fall into complete melancholy. The short film A New Man is a study of the third result.
Time travel can be a tricky plot device. Stories can defy their own time travel rules or become so convoluted that you struggle to follow it at all. With the hundreds of movies that feature different aspects of time travel, it can also be difficult to bring a fresh, original idea to the screen.
One of the best qualities you find in the cinephile world is a film that doesn’t take itself so seriously. Truly, what better way to do that than with puppets? Drugged up puppets that rob convenience stores.