Batz, a seven-minute animated short from Max Maleo and Aurélien Prédal, is a fabulously original tale of unlikely friendship. It follows two bats whose vastly different lifestyles collide in a fast-paced, action-packed adventure. While some of the visuals are a bit squirm-inducing – it is, after all, a short about bats – the whole thing…
Short film round-up
Although The Girl & The Tree loses something in cultural transposition, the two-minute short from Moin Samadi touches on universal themes of love, loss, and the ravages of both war and time. Samadi’s animation calls to mind both comic books and traditional Japanese art – a combination that is both beautiful and unique. Regardless of its esoteric details,…
Short film round-up
Minka Farthing-Kohl’s seven-minute Stray Dogs is a very strange short about a very strange summer day. It follows “Frank,” whose mundane wait at the bus stop turns into something much more dramatic when a distraught woman asks to borrow his phone. Much of the film feels like a very obvious Tarantino knockoff, but there’s enough originality to keep…
Short film round-up
Gwenn Germain’s two-and-a-half-minute Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux is beautiful but empty. Though its fantastical tale of a boy who literally falls into a world of magic and adventure is lushly animated, it feels choppy and rushed, moving through the story so quickly that it’s quite difficult for us to keep up. In fact, the whole…
Short film round-up
Border, a one-minute short from animation studio plan78, is a brief but brilliant commentary on the absurdity of the lines people draw between each other. Two little critters, one blue and one yellow, are on either side of one such line, though each has his own ideas about exactly what the line means. It’s a sweet and silly little…
Short film round-up
Based on a short story by Ádám Bodor, Hearth (Otthon), a five-minute short from director Bálint Gelley, is a typhoon of surreal images, death, and rebirth. It follows a man who is trying to save a young girl and three old women from drowning after an unexplained natural disaster. The short is visually stunning – despite its muted, watercolor-like…
Short film round-up
In Ngendo Mukii’s six-minute short Yellow Fever, the filmmaker uses real-life interviews, animation, and striking images of the human body to explore issues of race, identity, and self-image. Her main topic is the use of skin-lightening creams by African women. The short deals with the issue of feeling uncomfortable in one’s own skin – literally – and…
Short film round-up
Andre Hyland’s seven-minute Funnel is a neat little slice-of-life short about a man on a quest to fix his broken-down car. We hear the story through his side of a phone conversation as he treks to a gas station and back to his car. The short’s humor is based on its utter mundanity, though it’s…
Short film round-up
Benjamin Arcand’s five-and-a-half-minute Wackatdooo feels like an elaborate The Aristocats throwback with a sinister twist. It centers on an anthropomorphic, music- and wine-loving cat whose passion for raucous partying takes its toll – though it never gets him down for long. The silent short’s score is swell, and the animation is a fun throwback to the classics. Check it out…
Short film round-up
Leonard in Slow Motion, an eight-minute film from director Peter Livolsi, is a lovely example of what a short film should be. It follows a man whose life is lived entirely in slo-mo and his struggles with love, labor, and legerity. It’s simple but beautifully executed. Watch it here. Seven-minute La Petite Maison, from director Isaac Holland,…
Short film round-up: The Current short films, part 2
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…
Short film round-up
BANGS’ five-minute music video for the Mutual Benefit song “Advanced Falconry” packs a whole lot of characterization into a wordless slow-motion sequence. Nothing much happens in the film – it’s merely the backstory to a family portrait – but seeing all the chaos behind one moment of joy makes the moment all the sweeter. You wouldn’t think…
Short film round-up
Seth Boyden’s one-minute B.O.T., created as part of CalArts’ 48 Hour Film Festival, has a cute gimmick but doesn’t quite hit its mark. The short follows the story of a robot and an astronaut looking for life on an unnamed planet. While the animation could have benefited from additional time, any roughness can be excused by the…
Short film round-up
Move over, Morgan Freeman – there’s a new God in town, and his name is Nick Offerman. In Eric Kissack’s nine-minute The Gunfighter, Offerman plays an omniscient narrator of a Western scene whose speech can be heard by the characters he’s describing. Kissack mixes lowbrow gags and highbrow meta-humor to great effect, and Offerman’s narration…
Short film round-up
Although Hello World :) clocks in at 21 minutes, it feels like directors Rafaël Mathé and Etienne Larragueta tried to cram too much into too short a film. Each individual component of the cyberhacker piece is interesting and incredibly detailed, but when combined, we never get to a chance to fully engage with any of them. The result…
Short film round-up
Although Finnish filmmaker Mikko Löppönen’s nine-minute short L4ST doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue or plot or character development, it is an incredible atmospheric thrill ride. Based loosely on video game The Last of Us, the film follows two survivors trying to live through a zombie apocalypse. The short’s biggest strength is its…
Short film round-up
Alan Rickman stars in Dust, a delightfully creepy seven-minute short about a man and his obsession. It’s difficult to say much without giving anything away, but suffice it to say that writer/directors Ben Ockrent & Jake Russell do a wonderful job showcasing both Rickman’s talent and their own skill at creating an atmosphere. To see the film,…
Short film round-up
We continue our exploration of the works of Eoin Duffy with three of his longer animated shorts. You can find his work here. The two-and-a-half-minute short Encounter is a series of vignettes about man’s interference in nature’s affairs, specifically in the sea. It has Duffy’s signature quirky, minimalist visuals and sharp, nonverbal humor. The animation has…
Animated short film round-up
This week’s animated short film round-up will feature the works of Irish filmmaker Eoin Duffy, whose award-winning films can be found here. Weighing in at a hefty five seconds, Unbuttoned doesn’t have much in the way of plot – or anything else, really – but it does portray an almost universally despised phenomenon (which I will not spoil for…
Live-action short film round-up
French filmmaking collective HOTU’s three-minute 87 Bounces is not your typical short film. Somewhat of a cross between a supercut and a flipbook, follows a basketball as it bounces through cinematic history. What it lacks in story it makes up for in slick nostalgia. Watch it here. Six-minute short Snooze Time, from director Ivan Barge and writer Matthew Harris, feels…
Short film round-up
Despite coming from such a strong animation background, French filmmaker Loïc Bramoullé seems to draw up a rather lifeless character in Space Cat Hob. The six-minute short follows the titular astrokitty Hob, whose spaceship crash-lands on an alien planet. Although the world around Hob is lovingly crafted and stunningly beautiful, the cat’s misproportioned body and face straight out of…
Short film round-up
There’s a Man in the Woods might just be my favorite short of the year so far. The four-minute animated film from Cal Arts student tells the tale of a teacher whose life is destroyed when a rumor told by a selfish child wrecks his reputation. The images are rough and dark, and when paired with…
Short film round-up
For something with wit and style in spades, check out Writer’s Block, a five-minute short from Tom Gran and Martin Woolley set in a prison for criminally lousy writers. It’s an exercise in meta-storytelling that uses well-known cliches in a fresh new way, and it’s packed with clever sight gags and expert puns. What’s more,…
Short film round-up
I’m always a fan of short films that convey their stories without dialogue, and Life is Beautiful is no exception. The nine-minute animated short from Dutch filmmaker Ben Brand tells the sweetly sorrowful story of Anton, who’s always been smaller than his peers. When he tires of his miserable existence and decides to end it, he discovers…
Short film round-up
I’m a sucker for anything remotely twee, so Helium Harvey is right up my street. The three-minute animated short from Daniel Savage follows a young boy on an imaginative, balloon-fueled journey across the globe. The imagery is gorgeously retro, turning the simple story into something quite magical. If you’re up for something sweet, take a look at…
Short film round-up
If you don’t mind a bit of obtuse surrealism, check out This is Not a Time to Lie, a three-minute animated short from China’s Lei Lei that follows its main character on a trippy journey through a lush geometric landscape. None of it, from the poetic narration to the almost frantic animation, has a discernible point,…
