La noche dentro, Antonio Cuesta’s 24-minute thriller, is a feat of filmmaking. A sensorily taut narrative following the immediate aftermath of a boy’s death at the hands of a nurse, the film examines guilt with a withering transparency not likely to be forgotten anytime soon. Belén (an intricate Clare Durant) wakes up after being attacked,… Continue reading La noche dentro (The Night Inside): Nerve-Wracking Medical Thriller (Unbearable Horror of Guilt and Grief)
Tag: Private
Harlem Fragments: Haunted Memory and Valiant Attempts to Save Love
Cameron Tyler Carr’s 18-minute sci-fi drama Harlem Fragments is not a trip down memory lane. It is an adventure spanning years with the quest to salvage the remains of a life that once looked all but permanent. Emotionally fraught, and splintered in structure, the film follows 10 year-old TJ’s (Kyle Keyes) attempts to understand what… Continue reading Harlem Fragments: Haunted Memory and Valiant Attempts to Save Love
La Petite Mort: Femalehood and the Lonely Anger in Consumption
Federica Avagliano’s 15-minute vampire horror La Petite Mort will inevitably remind you of Black Swan—and not only because they are both films with ballerina protagonists grappling with the uncharted territory of their own messy, uncontainable feelings. In the relatively short window of time in which the viewer is given a glimpse into her life, Jezebel… Continue reading La Petite Mort: Femalehood and the Lonely Anger in Consumption
My Obsession with Death: Coming of Age by the Poolside
Alexis Evelyn’s My Obsession with Death is a 10-minute comedy that, along with its young adult protagonist, attempts to transcend its defining limits. Though the plot spans a few seconds, the story expands the moment, as thought and memory are wont to do. In them, Ruby finds a new way of being. Still in her… Continue reading My Obsession with Death: Coming of Age by the Poolside
Dumpster Archaeology: The Art of Rediscovering in Jazzy Docu on Dumpster Diving
Dustie Carter’s documentary on Lew Blink, Dumpster Archaeology captures its subject’s lighthearted whimsy through its comedic, stylised design—leaving the job of showcasing Blink’s earnestness about his pursuits to him. His excitement is infectious (potentially so is his work, in less fun ways) as Blink dives into dumpster after smelly dumpster in the middle of summer,… Continue reading Dumpster Archaeology: The Art of Rediscovering in Jazzy Docu on Dumpster Diving
Aroma: An Everyday Cafe Comedy-Drama
Oliver Ward’s Aroma is a 10-minute short set in a modern North London cafe but has the flavour of post-war European cinema (with the barest hint of Fleabag). A man—a comically exacting one where his order is concerned—waits for his date to arrive, a young couple plays scrabble while discussing sexual possibilities, and a tired… Continue reading Aroma: An Everyday Cafe Comedy-Drama
Trouble: Faces in the Crowd of a Century-Old Story
Jonathan Shaw’s Trouble, an Irish Civil War drama through the eyes of a bereaved family, is brimming with an oppressive air that can be hard to sit with. With their father still in an unburied coffin and the brother only recently returned from being a prisoner of war, three siblings reckon with the new, uneasy… Continue reading Trouble: Faces in the Crowd of a Century-Old Story
Locked In: The Fresh Adventures of the Latest Dumb and Dumber
Ethan Koester and Jhye Smith’s Locked In is a 35-minute action-comedy that delights in its theatricality on every level. Are all the actors hilariously cast against their character ages? Yes. Are they all working with an exaggerated plot that makes sense only with fun on everyone’s minds? Nothing could be truer. Co-written by Justin McCleskey… Continue reading Locked In: The Fresh Adventures of the Latest Dumb and Dumber
I Know There’s Something Here for You: Pursuit of Relief in Sci-Fi Drama
Sean Robert Kelly’s I Know There’s Something Here for You is a heartfelt drama (with undertones of comedy) about a man’s attempts to die or disappear—anything to lighten the weight of existence. And there’s the extraterrestrial life too. The film features a heavily contrasted pair of siblings—the sister responsible and grounded, the brother ambitious and… Continue reading I Know There’s Something Here for You: Pursuit of Relief in Sci-Fi Drama
The Purpose: Failing Youth and Crises All Around in Drama on Ambition
A morbidly comical drama about two young women with dreams in the time of plague and war, Dimitri Nasennik’s The Purpose lets its heroines be two sides of the same coin of ambition held up in limbo. Its star is Kristel (Natalia Shevchenko), a less lethal take on Killing Eve’s Villanelle. The sociopathy is casual,… Continue reading The Purpose: Failing Youth and Crises All Around in Drama on Ambition