Tag: Private

Hóng Bāo, named after a traditional monetary gift among the Chinese, traces the roots of that money for one family and the personal cost it has for the earner.  Writers-Directors Tanya Jade and Aaron Moss’ treatment makes the characters empathizable but unquestionably chilling. It opens with a tense strain of music, followed by a conversation… Continue reading Hóng Bāo: The Frightening Quality Of Resignation

The pilot of Rahul Nath’s Monster opens with a three-minute-long take, languidly establishing the character of one of its antagonists. There are two. And there is a good cop. Its opening scene begins after the unnamed man (Manoj Mathew) has already killed his latest victim, which as we see from his souvenirs, is the third… Continue reading Monster: Facing Two Monsters At Once

Writer-Director Gregory Alexander Foltynowicz’s Facades is a 9:50-minutes long analysis of one’s self. Done vicariously through the bonding of its protagonists, the process to self-discovery is shown as an almost otherworldly experience.  The first thing one notices in Facades is its use of the natural elements (space, water and air). The very starting scene with… Continue reading Facades: An Experimental Short Dissecting Relationships

The obsessions of Charley, Shutter’s anti-hero, is set forth in the opening moments of the film: beauty, perfection, flawlessness. A photographer, Charley’s obsessions might have come across as benign under different circumstances, but being questioned about the immediate disappearances of women after he has photographed them raises a few questions. Sitting in an interrogation room… Continue reading Shutter: A Whodunnit With An Easy Answer

Regijus Simkevicius documents a sliver of an unusual man’s life as he recounts his metaphorical and literal journeys in life, some of which made news and put him down in history as the man who journeyed to the Alps on a space hopper.  The Extraordinary Steven Payne explores the eccentricities and unusual circumstances of Steven… Continue reading The Extraordinary Steven Payne: Making Record Lemonades Of Bitter Lemons

Flight – Short Film Review – Indie Shorts MagNatalie Peracchio has filled her latest film with grief, wit, love, and a whole relationship, all in a five-minute-long run. On the surface, not much happens in Peracchio’s Flight. If you do not pay attention, there is nothing out of the ordinary, only the mundanity of regular… Continue reading Flight: Gut Punch Hidden In A Simple Drama

Fourteen minutes does not seem like a long enough time to explore a story, past, present and epilogue. In many hands, it would not be enough. But Ksenia Ivanova does just that with Jack and Anna (co-written by Savannah Oakes), a period drama based on a true story, of Jack Hill and Anna Slifka who… Continue reading Jack and Anna: Masterclass In Succinct Storytelling That Covers Multiple Timelines

Nicholas Connor’s Cotton Wool covers the universal hardships of being a child, a teenager, or a mother and specifically, having to be an adult at all of those stages. Connor bases his film as both a portrayal and a tribute to the 22,000 aged under nine and 243,000 aged under nineteen carers in England and… Continue reading Cotton Wool: In Fierce Defense Of People’s Value

Nathaniel Upshaw’s comedy Dead Ringer is a bottle film, designed to be all the more tense and claustrophobic through its unchanging visuals: the camera never shifts position, maintaining its low angle, two-shot framing throughout. The cast consists of an ageing mobster (Time Winters) and his rookie thug (Justin Avila), huddled over the trunk of a… Continue reading Dead Ringer: Fresh Spin On Crime Comedy