Short Film Reviews

SeaSapien is as much a comedy as it is a fantasy. In fact, writer-director Sascha Karner uses fantasy only as a platter on which to serve the comedic treatment of an unabashedly eccentric plot that, even aside from comedy, is a fantastic premise filled with potential. The unnamed hero cop hates the ocean, and with good reason. Not…

The last time a film about strange-curious-people and houses were made, albeit delightful when it finally kickstarted itself into motion, it suffered from…

Chris Brake’s Cactus Boy is delicate, touching and quite literally a tribute: to one’s childhood, one’s best friend and to nostalgia. The story of a boy and…

The guilt and grief that Susan daily contended with were unmistakable. After all, she had come out into the Mojave Desert to, if not forget, make peace with the grief of her little boy’s death. In Jaime Torres’ Mojave Shadows - a film that focuses on the immediacy of a rattlesnake bite-- it is grief that is its overarching theme that pervades…

Writer-Director Parminder Singh’s Ida is the story of an 8-year old and the nightmares she endures, even during daytime. Living with an alcoholic parent can…

What’s the price one pays for a better life? What’s the limit to pushing oneself for it? What’s the price of one’s life, anyway? Apparently very little,…

As C’Mo puts it, PTSD doesn’t let you forget and dementia does not let you remember. And both are personal hells for the ones affected. In Allie Light and Patrick Stark directed Any Wednesday, the old walk-and-talk routine brings together a homeless war vet and an octogenarian on a rainy night. For both, rain means trouble: C’Mo (Shane…

Oran Zegman’s Marriage Material is a glittery nightmare of a satire. And it’s a musical (a first for AFI, where Zegman was a student; Marriage Material is her…

Working at as young as 13 is a reality for almost anyone who has grown up grappling with historical poverty. Education is a distant dream, especially if you…

Although the eponymous character in this Patrick Fritz directed drama has barely more than a few seconds on screen, the film makes it very clear why Fritz named it so. For, even the character itself is not physically present, it is his presence that drastically changes at least two lives. The discovery of Elijah becomes no less than the discovery…