Isaac Suero’s Absolute Power demonstrates not how absolute power corrupts, but how it reveals. Written by James Roche, the 20-minute film centres on a dinner between old friends, with things going wrong before the plot has even begun. Three couples populate the world of Absolute Power. A white heterosexual couple (JD Martin, Emma Orelove), the… Continue reading Absolute Power: Structures of Power and Their Preservation
Tag: Drama Short Film Review
Man Obsessed: Romantic Obsessions And Everything Else They Distract From
Tony Suriano’s Man Obsessed details the journey of its protagonist, Sam, through unrequited love, breakdown and a chance at a new beginning. An amateur songwriter, Sam’s breakdown is the point of the film’s beginning, finding him waist deep in a river, playing a broken guitar with no strings. Thus Sam (played by Suriano) starts off… Continue reading Man Obsessed: Romantic Obsessions And Everything Else They Distract From
One More Bite: The Price That Coping Mechanisms Exact
Yaxing Lin’s One More Bite explores how some slippery slopes turn into vicious cycles that do not stop unless stopped. 18 minutes long, the film centres on Jiuming, a young woman with bulimia who is also coping with an unhealthy relationship. The two feed into each other, with more factors like family added in. Jiuming… Continue reading One More Bite: The Price That Coping Mechanisms Exact
Perfect: Finding Homegrown Love Through Home Trials
Michael Heaton’s 26-minute comedy-drama Perfect is a story set in an alternate universe of the 1950s US. Here, humans grow like plants, made to order for people looking for love or children. Or both, as in the case of Patty’s neighbour. It is this neighbour, Martha (Alejandra Chavarria), who gets Patty (Samantha Clarke) to try… Continue reading Perfect: Finding Homegrown Love Through Home Trials
Santi: Grappling With Not Belonging
Harry Richards’ Santi follows a young man’s evening at a London party with his girlfriend. The lone Colombian in a crowd of English, Santi’s search for a quiet corner to answer his mother’s call finds him navigating microaggressions and the keen, unceasing self-consciousness of being different. They are not his friends. Santi (Jon Gutierrez) is… Continue reading Santi: Grappling With Not Belonging
Allende: Turbulent Shame Beneath Mundane Waters
Yohanan Doron’s Allende forays into the oftentimes tense arena of repressed sexuality. The protagonist is a closeted, married man with a young child and an unborn one. The film explores the dual lives of Francisco and his wife, the latter caught up in a life of her husband’s making and neither the happier for it. … Continue reading Allende: Turbulent Shame Beneath Mundane Waters
Sharing: The Small Realities of Joint Custody
Mykea Perry’s Sharing examines the rarely explored loneliness of sharing custody of one’s child–or being the child of a split family. The 10-minute long film follows a mother and daughter as they make the bittersweet journey to drop off the latter at her father’s house for Christmas weekend. It is a quiet film. Melancholia seeps… Continue reading Sharing: The Small Realities of Joint Custody
The Code of Family: On Disregarding The Imposed Limits of Ageing
Kayla Sun’s The Code of Family is a 15-minute drama inspired by the life of Masako Wakamiya, an 84-year old programmer who began no younger than 60. The film is a fictionalised account of a similar character. Perhaps the most telling detail of the woman’s (Ling Zhi) story is that she has no name. Her… Continue reading The Code of Family: On Disregarding The Imposed Limits of Ageing
The ‘Other’ Talk: A Choice Between The Safe Thing And The Right Thing
Sultan Ali’s The ‘Other’ Talk is a short 4-minute film that cleverly tells half its story and leaves the rest abundantly clear. Centred on a daughter who wants to do the right thing, and a father who wants her to do the safe thing, the film is just as minimalist in its production as it… Continue reading The ‘Other’ Talk: A Choice Between The Safe Thing And The Right Thing
AAgnostic: A Suspension Between Religion And Furious Doubt
Daniel James Dismuke’s AAgnostic deliberates on questions of good, evil and religion through the story of a woman’s crippling guilt in the wake of a tragedy. Over the 17-minute runtime, she discovers truths which bring as much clarity as they do deeper confusion and guilt. Grace (Megan Elizabeth Barker) is a struggling alcoholic sitting through… Continue reading AAgnostic: A Suspension Between Religion And Furious Doubt