March - 2021

REVIEWS

Mar 30, 2021

Leonidas and the Fish [Alexander Machlouzarides-Shalit, Cyprus, 2020]

Leonidas and the Fish is a touching snapshot into the life of a young boy, rising early every morning to reach the nearby beach at sunrise.

Distance [Richard Schertzer, United States, 2020]

Antonio Matei

Mar 29, 2021

Distance [Richard Schertzer, United States, 2020]

In the opening scene of the short film Distance, director Richard Schertzer manages to accurately capture the feeling of solitude, quietness, and loneliness produced by a pandemic. Although the action takes place in a dystopian future and on a distant planet, it correlates with familiar problems of the present. In this hostile environment we find main character, Bonnie Whitmore, hiding out in the woods searching for her missing son when she encounters a young man with a secre

Rebirth [Eleonora Privitera, Italy, 2020]

Will Whitehead

Mar 29, 2021

Rebirth [Eleonora Privitera, Italy, 2020]

Presented with unflinching clarity, Eleonora Privitera’s Rebirth is a heart-wrenchingly personal insight into the hardships of caring for a loved one with cancer. The brevity and simplicity of Privitera’s documentary allows its subjects to fill the film with warmth and sadness in equal measure. The film opens with home video footage of Grazia and Vincenzo, the film’s subjects, happily in love. Immediately we are drawn in close, granted access to the intimate personal life of

Fung Ying Cheng

Mar 29, 2021

GOAT Love [Stephanie Quist, USA, 2020]

Playful with both its form and tone, Stephanie Quist’s GOAT Love is a colourful silent film with a sweet love story at its core. Even though the intertitles are sparse, it is easy to guess what the lovebirds are communicating to each other through the lead’s enthusiastic performances. Although somewhat predictable, the film as a whole is charming enough to make it worth the watch. The film follows Caitlin (played by Caitlin Rose) who meets her lover Joe (played by Joe Casterl

Alex Hutson

Mar 29, 2021

Switch [Reswin Bahas, Australia, 2021]

Australian short film Switch takes the audience on a journey of regret and remorse from the perspective of a gas station cashier. Director Reswin Bahas blurs the line between reality and imagination when the cashier starts experiencing hallucinations through watching his customers pass in and out of the gas station. Based off Bahas’ own personal memories between himself and his father, the film begins with an argument between a father and son outside the gas station. This dev

An Étude in Art [Yvonne Coughlan, UK, 2020]

Adam Donald

Mar 28, 2021

An Étude in Art [Yvonne Coughlan, UK, 2020]

A struggling writer, a dance student, and a renowned musician are the subjects in this complex experimental drama. Through fractured visions, director Yvonne Coughlan delves deep into the terrifying experiences and overwhelming challenges artists face during their creative processes. Shot in mostly black-and-white and in the style of the 1920s silent era, this short was created as a response to Liszt/Paganini’s ‘Etude No. 6 in A Minor - Tema e Variazioni’. The film asks more

Fung Ying Cheng

Mar 28, 2021

Red t’Blue [Jay Martin, UK, 2021]

Regardless of who is talking and which side they’re on, Brexit is a difficult topic to talk about. Just mentioning the word tells you enough about what Jay Martin’s documentary short, Red t’Blue, focuses on – though not quite. Both fascinating and insightful, Red t’Blue accounts how decades worth of disenfranchisement led the constituency of the ex-mining town, Mansfield, to give their seat to the Conservative Party, which until the snap-election of 2017, had never been done

Give Me a Name [Sheena Holliday, UK, 2020]

Natalia Brammen

Mar 27, 2021

Give Me a Name [Sheena Holliday, UK, 2020]

The rise of dystopian narratives in the last decade seems more conspicuous or even extreme than in the past. With movies such as Snowpiercer [Bong Joon Ho, South Korea, 2013], Blade Runner 2049 [Denis Villeneuve, USA, 2017] and The Hunger Games [Gary Ross, USA, 2012], to name only a few, audiences have been presented with dark yet seemingly unlikely prospects. The universes created in those films often portray a society ruled by a corrupt and depraved government that employs

Dark Hearts [Kevin Van Stevenson, USA, 2020]

Sarthak Kaul

Mar 27, 2021

Dark Hearts [Kevin Van Stevenson, USA, 2020]

Kevin Van Stevenson’s Dark Hearts opens with a montage of a child’s room in utter disrepair – crayons strewn across the floor signalling...

The Funeral [Sara Eustáquio, Portugal, 2020]

Freddie Deighton

Mar 27, 2021

The Funeral [Sara Eustáquio, Portugal, 2020]

The Funeral is a short film about youth, anxiety, and the depression that follows in its wake. It depicts four young people sitting on a roof drinking without a care in complete silence. The majority of the film is spent in the main character’s head as she laments about her life and desires, dubbing this gathering as her metaphorical funeral. One does get a sense that this individual is somewhat disenfranchised and is searching for a purpose. Her inner thoughts last the entir

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