Over the next two weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the new short film series from The Current. According to their website, “The Current is 10 attempts at alternative journalistic modes of communication, and 10 never before seen explorations of the news media. A creative supplement in the media landscape. It is entirely free and widely accessible. Based on the idea that our world view originates from our often abstract emotional life, rather than from our rational thoughts, it is our mission to add to news media an extra dimension across the spoken and written word – doing so via creative and artistic cinematic solutions.” Find the films here.
- Eddie Mitra’s three-minute Beyond Fiction is a simple story with a heck of a twist, riffing on old-school film noir. Though it certainly meets The Current’s requirements for a relevant theme – the destructive power of simulated violence – it does so in a surprisingly fun way. It remembers that the primary purpose of a film is to entertain as well as instruct, eschewing didacticism in favor of a subtle nudge. However, it is a bit of a one-trick pony that feels rather thin after three minutes. Rating: 8/10.
- Generation Growth, a two-minute short from the excellently named Martin Martensen-Larsen, is a shockingly surreal look at the economy – although exactly what it’s saying about the economy, I couldn’t say. The film pulls no punches, using graphic imagery to get its point across. Unfortunately, it feels like Martinsen-Larsen cared more about the look of the short than about making sure its message made any sense. Rating: 6/10.
- Asger Lindgaard’s Deported is a three-minute short that displays little to no tact in its treatment of its characters. It, too, falls into the trap of style over substance, devoting far too much time to pretty but expositionally redundant images. Furthermore, this lack of editorial oversight renders the characters unrelatable, which makes their admittedly unfortunate problem seem unimportant. Rating 5/10
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