Over recent years, a massive influx of refugees trying to cross the water boundary between Turkey and Greece has caused chaos for the Coast Guard. They pull in hundreds of people per day. But they cannot possibly take everyone.
Life on these waters are depicted as harrowing. People are separated from their families. People slip into the water and drown. And all the while the Coast Guard Continue reading 4.1 Miles (2016) Short Film Review
In Aleppo, Syria, air strikes are a daily occurrence. The city relies on a volunteer group called the White Helmets who act as first responders on the ground after these attacks.
The Netflix original documentary short film The White Helmets follows members of this organization. Through a mix of Continue reading The White Helmets (2016) Short Film Review
“How long can you live with memories?”
This is one of the first lines of Joe’s Violin, coming from the eponymous Joseph Feingold. It is an expression of his carefree attitude about donating one of his most prized possessions: a violin. What Joe’s Violin aims to do, however, is supplant that throwaway notion with the creation of new memories.
Joe’s story is one of Holocaust tragedy. At the age of 17, in eastern Poland, Feingold was taken by the Russians and put into a Siberian labor camp. Of the few things he had after his time in the camp his violin becomes, in retrospect, a Continue reading Joe’s Violin (2016) Short Film Review
In a rural forest, the snap of a rifle shot breaks the quaint silence. Two brothers (Fidel Badran and Jad Badran) stand over their unseen prey, taking a beat before they go about covering their tracks so their father does not realize what they have done with his hunting rifle.
The Rifle, The Jackal, The Wolf and The Boy is the familiar feeling of childhood guilt ratcheted up to grim stakes. The narrative itself is almost absurdly simplistic, and the film chooses to rely instead on Continue reading The Rifle, The Jackal, The Wolf and The Boy (2016) Short Film Review
The premise of The Story of 90 Coins, the romance short film from director Michael Wong, is beautifully simple. A couple at a crossroads (Dongjun Han and Zhuang Zhiqi) give themselves 90 days to make a decision of whether to marry or part ways. Of course, reality sets in, and the poetry of the situation is threatened by real-world pressures.
This initial contrast of dual tones is pleasantly surprising. The film begins with a feeling of melodrama, that this will be a short overwrought with heavy lovelorn emotion. In a sense this is what we get, but there is also Continue reading The Story of 90 Coins (2015) Short Film Review
There is something to the aesthetic of Where the Woods End, the thriller short subject from director Felix Ahrens. It is sleek and gritty all at once. A glorious crane shot of the titular woods opens the short, panning across the lush, unassuming setting.
Where the Woods End is a taut psychological thriller that follows the growing internal torment of police officer Elke (Henrike von Kuick) after she Continue reading Where the Woods End (Am Ende Der Wald) (2016) Short Film Review
Birthday, the narrative short film from director Chris King, feels stylistically as a documentary. This adds to its weight. In a tightly framed set of reverses, we are privy to a grin-filled conversation between two people over Skype. One, a marine (Chris Gouchoe) 43 days away from the end of his tour. The other, his schoolteacher wife (Mandy Moody) anxiously awaiting his return.
The next three minutes are told in montage over what is perhaps an overly sentimental string score. We see the soldier step on a landmine. We see his wife’s response. We see his slow, grueling recovery.
He returns home on his birthday. As he enters the threshold and surveys the home, as if it is Continue reading Birthday (2016) Short Film Review
“Live longer or die faster.” With a gun to your head, what would you choose? If it sounds like a trick question, that’s because it is. “Do you think this is funny?” the man with the gun (Vasile Flutur) asks after the captured Alex (Stephen Friedrich) makes light of his dire situation.
And, yeah, it kind of is. From the lovable loser romantic subplot to the at first anachronistic interrogation sequence, the understatement in Alex’s character is comedic. It is also Continue reading The Kidnapping of a Fish (2016) Short Film Review
Oh, the tale of the blind date. It is always equal parts sad, desperate, and inexplicably sweet. Bernie and Rebecca may take place at the tail end of such a story, but it still maintains these identifiable tones. It begins at Rebecca’s (Brianna Barnes) front door, where Bernie (Kyle Davis) explains that he does not go by the name Bernard. It is an intriguing opening monologue, explaining the personality differences between shorthand vs. formal names.
The film continues with dialogue of this nature. It is what you would expect from date conversation, but it is not Continue reading Bernie and Rebecca (2016) Short Film Review
Note: Spoilers for Sunspring are in this in-depth review. The video is embedded below if you want to watch before you read.
In Sunspring, director Oscar Sharp engages in a cinematic experiment. The goal: to create an award-worthy short film using a script written by an artificial intelligence. The result: glorious sci-fi chaos. Feeding the A.I. with dozens of science fiction script .txt files and a series of prompts given for a sci-fi filmmaking competition, the small cast and crew used the resulting script to shoot the short in one day.
“In a future with mass unemployment, young people are forced to sell blood,” Thomas Middleditch’s H begins, upon pulling a book out of a drawer and thumbing through it. “It’s something I could do.”
This is perhaps the most Continue reading An In-Depth Analysis of Sunspring (2016), The Short Film Written By A Computer
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