Other World's Film Festival 2020: Shorts 1: Conflict, Resistance, and Laundry

This is my first time experiencing Austin's Other Worlds Film Festival, now in its seventh year, and I'm excited! This science fiction festival has been named as one of “The World’s Best 50 Genre Fests” by MovieMaker Magazine, and this year features more than forty films, including features, documentaries, and short films. This being 2020, it is of course virtual this year. But there's something appropriately science fictional about that.

The festival runs two more days, through Sunday December 6, so it's not too late to catch some of it. When it comes to film festivals, short films are my favorite because there are often lots of little jewels to be found. Here's my look at the first session of short films, collectively titled "Conflict, Resistance and Laundry".

2091
Director: Carlos J. Matos
Screenwriter: Carlos J. Matos
Cast: Ana Bokesa, Filipa Ribeiro, Ziyi Yang
Runtime: 7 minutes
Language: no dialogue
Country: Spain

There's no rule that a short film has to have dialogue, and I applaud this one's attempt to tell its story without words. Filmed somewhat in the style of a music video, 2091 is about "three heroic hackers" who "attempt to save their world from an evil electronic entity." I have to be honest; if if I hadn't read that description, I'm not sure I would have figured out so specifically that that was what happened, but it was clear that the three individuals were in conflict with something mysterious and threatening. Some of the visuals were interesting, and the techno music was quite catchy.


Deus Otiosus / The Idle God
Director: Mat Braddy
Screenwriter: Mat Braddy
Cast: Sèverine Howell-Meri (Bryana), Margereta Szabo (Priestess Lila), Christopher Fairbank (Deus)
Runtime: 17 minutes
Language: English
Country: UK

This film was interesting but cryptic. [Spoilers ahead] Upon encountering the reclusive man whom her villagers view as a God, a pregnant widow learns that the blight that took her husband was the result of the man "pruning" in order to keep the population in check. She steals his technological link, which kills him, and ostensibly becomes the new "God" in his place. I think we're meant to infer that this link to the god-like technology is passed down from one "keeper" to another, but Bryana has interrupted that order. What she'll do with the information and the technology is unknown. I particularly liked Sèverine Howell-Meri as Bryana, and the film's atmosphere reminded me, in a good way, of an episode of Black Mirror.

Elysia
Director: Wesley Mellott
Screenwriters: Chloe Carroll, Brittany Snyman
Cast: Rachel Donahue (Elysia), Chloe Carroll (Molly)
Runtime: 10 minutes
Language: English
Country: USA

[Spoilers ahead] In her grief over losing her human child to old age, a vampire named Molly kidnaps a young boy. Her human lover, Elysia, takes matters into her own hands when she finally acknowledges that Molly cannot or will not control herself. This was atmospheric and effective, with beautiful sets and lighting and good acting, but the last line of the film felt a little heavy-handed.


Q: Spukhafte Fernwirkung (Q: Ghostly Remote Effect)
Director: Marcus Hanisch
Screenwriters: Marcus Hanisch, Anna-Lena Theobald, Ariana Berndl
Cast: Effi Rabsilber, Lise Risom Olsen
Runtime: 20 minutes
Language: German
Country: Germany

A female scientist and a somewhat androgynous android set out together on a quest across gorgeous, sprawling vistas. I only understood about half of the German, but to be honest I'm not sure I would have understood the story even if I'd recognized every word. The scientist appeared to be looking for something specific, but I'm not sure whether what she was searching for was clearly made known to the viewers, and the ending seemed inconclusive. I wish I could have seen this with English subtitles so I could write about it more intelligently.

Washed
Director: Michael Bartolomeo
Screenwriters: Michael Bartolomeo, Stephen West-Rogers
Cast: Stephen West-Rogers, Sergine Garraud, Lukas Hassel
Runtime: 9 minutes
Language: English
Country: USA

Eldritch Laundry! This amusing film used an interesting film technique -- I don't know what it was, but it was as though the background was moving at double speed, while overlaid with the main characters' movements that looked almost like they were filmed in a stop-motion technique. My inadequate description doesn't quite make sense even to me, but whatever it was, it was a fitting choice for this odd little tale of comedy-horror.

Raze of the Cyborg
Director: Young-H. Lee
Screenwriter: Young-H. Lee
Cast: Young-H. Lee, Fox Lee
Runtime: 25 minutes
Language: Chinese
Country: Taiwan

This film doesn't quite give us a new story -- it'a about a man who will go to great lengths to rescue his kidnapped fiancee. But the production values, robotics, and other special effects were impressive, and the lead actor has the kind of polish that would make him fit in any cinema blockbuster. Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2018: Comedy-Dark / Romantic

The 51st Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival

Comedy-Dark/Romantic Shorts
Saturday, April 21, 2018, 1:00 p.m.
Continuing an April tradition, this past Saturday I attended the first of several short film sessions at Worldfest-Houston, a local-yet-worldwide film festival that's now in its fifty-first year. Worldfest-Houston has just moved to a new theater home: the Cinemark Theatres at Memorial City Mall.

Please note that spoilers may occur in individual reviews, but I'll mark them so readers can skip those parts if they choose.

* * *

Cold Storage

Director: Thomas Freundlich
Screenwriters: Thomas Freundlich, Valtteri Raekallio
Length: 8:45 minutes
Category: Comedy
Country: Finland
Link: Trailer

The program book synopsis for this short film calls it "a short dance film that pays homage to the virtuosic physical performances and melancholy comedy of the classic silent screen." Yes, I definitely can see that, in this comedic, dialogue-free piece. In it, an ice fisherman "discovers his prehistoric counterpart frozen in the ice, and thaws him out as his newfound soul brother."

Normally, I would have summarized the plot in my own words, but without having seen the description before I viewed the film, I didn't realize that the thawed man was from prehistoric times. Instead, I assumed that he was simply someone who gotten lost or stranded, and was wearing clothing made of animal skins to survive. I even went so far as to wonder whether the thawed man had actually planned to put himself in "cold storage," and for a brief moment I even thought they were clones of one another. (Here's where having a science fiction mindset has its drawbacks; my brain instinctively looks for overly complex explanations and plot twists where there aren't any.)

All that aside, the film becomes funny and delightful as [SPOILERS AHEAD] the two men share beer after beer (after beer) and engage in a comradely pas de deux to celebrate their newfound brotherhood. When the inevitable morning after arrives, however, only one man remains, exiting the shelter to see a living tusked wooly mammoth in the distance. I was not sure if the shelter had gone back in time, or if the mammoth had somehow survived the eons without humans knowing until now, or ....?

Overall, this is a polished, skillfully made film, which quite frankly would make a terrific beer commercial. (I mean that as a compliment; it's funny and quirky in the way of the best television commercials.) I was a little befuddled by what was meant to have happened, and would have preferred a more obvious narrative, but I still enjoyed this film a great deal.

* * *

17 Years Together
(orig: Braquage Sérénade)

Director: Javier Fesser
Screenwriters: Javier Fesser, Claro García
Length: 15 minutes
Category: Comedy
Country: Spain
Link: Review from madridcoolblog.com

This charming film was my favorite of the session. Walter and Mardelina are domestic employees serving a couple, Pepe and Asun, who are celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary. It also happens to be Mardelina's birthday, but her and Walter's protests about suddenly being required to work on their evening off fall on deaf ears when their employers announce they are hosting a special dinner that evening.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] This film went in a direction I didn't expect. When the guests' arrival is imminent, Asun summons Mardelina to help her mend a dress, and has Mardelina try the dress on so Asun can better adjust it before making the repair. Meanwhile, Walter changes from his regular working clothes to a butler's tuxedo. When the doorbell rings and Mardelina rushes downstairs, still in Asun's dress, I expected her and Walter to see each other, then suddenly decide to walk out on their employers and enjoy their special evening after all. Instead, she opens the door to find their young son and Mardelina's mother on the doorstep, brought there by their employers to surprise them for Mardelina's birthday. Pepe and Asun, now dressed as butler and maid, treat their employees and the guests to a night of being waited on, and apparently consider this gesture to be not only a gift for Mardelina, but also their own anniversary present to one another after 17 years of marriage.

For me, there was only one note in this film that felt slightly off. As was a trend for a number of films in this session, there was more than one "ending," in that the action ended and the film cut to credits, but then came back for at least one more, and sometimes several more, short scenes. (I blame the Marvel Universe for this trend, by the way). At any rate, Pepe and Asun indicate that Mardelina and her family should make themselves at home for the evening, and Mardelina and Walter begin making the same kind of demands that we've heard throughout the film from Pepe and Asun themselves: "Do you expect us to clear our own dishes?!" "Why are you just standing there; you look like you've had a stroke!" and so on. Unsurprisingly, Pepe and Asun looked shocked. And then the movie ends again.

For me, the false note is that we don't get to see Pepe and Asun's dawning realization that they've been mistreating their employees by speaking to them that way even as they plan a wonderful surprise for them. We don't get any sense that a grateful Walter and Mardelina are now comfortable enough to teasingly let their employers know how they often sound -- in other words, Walter and Mardelina don't behave as if they're having a little joke on their employers, but rather that they just automatically fall into this behavior the minute they're in charge for, well, a minute. Played slightly differently, this could have enhanced the film for me, rather than feeling like a not-quite-funny-enough afterthought.

That said, this still remained my favorite of the films, in part because the actors seemed professional but like real people, if that makes sense.

* * *

The App

Director: Julian Merino
Screenwriter: Julian Merino
Length: 15 minutes
Category: Dark Comedy
Country: Spain
Link: Film's IMDB page

An average middle-aged white-collar worker wakes up next to a stunning blonde younger woman, and we gradually learn that Benito has been making use of an app that tells him what he needs to do to be happy each day. [MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD] The app, it turns out, is what got him a better job, not to mention the affections of a lover who we otherwise might assume would be way out of his league. The only problem is that today the app is telling him to jump off his fourth story balcony, and the app's call-in customer support is less than helpful, simply reminding him that the app has never steered him wrong before.

This is a clever little film, and it definitely has the "dark" element of "dark comedy." In this case, I won't give everything away: the question is whether Benito will or won't continue to put his trust in the app, and what will happen next based on that decision. This film was a close second for my favorite of the session.

* * *

Come Correct

Directors: Alex Russell, Dominic Russell
Screenwriter: Dominic Russell
Length: 11:51 minutes
Category: Comedy
Country: Australia
Link: IMDB page

The program book describes this film as follows: "A loveable Bogan challenges a pompous Bartender to a cocktail duel after he is unfairly evicted." I had to look up the word "bogan," which according to Wikipedia is "Australian slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated." So that makes sense: our bogan in the film goes into a posh nightclub and orders the wrong type of liquor, getting himself kicked out in the process. But then he challenges the bartender to a mix-off, and the cocky barkeep can't refuse. The stakes are high: if the bartender wins, the bogan can never drink alcohol again. If the bogan wins, the bartender can never again mix a cocktail.

This was amusing at times, but ultimately didn't work for me. I think, but haven't been able to confirm, that this short work was parodying some martial art film tropes. Even if that was the case, however, I felt as though it was a little too over the top and, at times, too random, such as when the judge of the contest self-declares himself as worthy of the responsibility because he has (insert booming voice) an EPIC BEARD. It was mildly amusing, but again, felt random.

* * *

Triumphers
(orig: Triunfadores)

Director: Joseba Alfaro
Screenwriters: Joseba Alfaro, Laura Racero
Length: 7:44 minutes
Category: Comedy Dark
Country: Spain
Link: Vimeo trailer

In this film, a young woman in the afterlife pleads for a personality that will make her happier on the next go-round; she wants to be a selfish, superficial person instead of the one who always gives up her seat on the bus. [SPOILERS AHEAD] This "negotiation" takes place with an older woman, an afterlife bureaucrat of sorts, who is just about to grant the young woman's wishes, but instead she concludes that the young woman is simply too hopeless, and that to change her personality would cause a great disturbance in the universe.

This was a cute concept with a meaningful dose of cynicism that I appreciated. It was fine as is, but I couldn't help wondering if it would have worked slightly better for me if it were either a little more tight, perhaps five instead of nearly eight minutes, or if it were slightly expanded to show what kind of requests the already superficial people made. Did they know to keep asking to be jerks, as their best bet to be happy, or would some of them wanted to improve themselves?

* * *
Migrating to Reality

Directors: Roman Kaykov, Miriam Mordukhayev
Screenwriter: Miriam Mordukhayev
Length: 4:28 minutes
Category: Comedy
Country: United States

A young woman named Olga stands in front of a bored casting director, trying to infuse meaning into a Pretty Woman monologue while the director ignores her while shouting into his phone. [SPOILERS AHEAD] To her mortification, her relatives barge into the audition to chastise her, and the director suddenly has the inspiration to build a reality TV show around the threesome. This is a cute, short film, but a lot of the information contained in the program book synopsis didn't come through for me; for instance, I assumed the people were her parents but they apparently were her father and grandmother. The synopsis says that "Olga must now pave her own way to an acting career, all while hashing out countless manipulated scenarios with her family on national television, and walking a tightrope as a young, inexperienced, female minority, trying to work in Hollywood."

While I think it's desirable for short films, and short stories for that matter, to have background details that don't necessarily make it into the final product, I'm not sure if it helps to have this detail spelled out in the synopsis, because it made me aware of how little of this made it into the film. However, in googling the short film, I found a casting call online indicating that this is meant to be the opening scene of a pilot episode for a sitcom. That makes me a little more enthusiastic; I think a sitcom about a reality show could be fun and cute in a recursive kind of way.

* * *

Soybean Oil Errands

Directors: Mooyoung Oh
Screenwriter: Mooyoung Oh
Length: 15 minutes
Category: Dark Comedy
Country: South Korea
Link: Trailer on Vimeo

This film opens with a young man in his underwear, held at gunpoint by the authorities as he mentally reflects that the whole situation was caused by some soybean oil that he was sent on an errand to buy at the store. We then flash back to his encounters with a young woman and her father; both disdain him, calling him a "dickhead" repeatedly and telling him to leave the girl alone. [SPOILERS AHEAD] That evening, the young man comes across a van in which a group of men are attacking the same girl, and rather than just moving along and pretending not to see what is happening, the young man strips, pours the oil on himself, and attacks the group of men, having made himself a strategically slippery target. He then carries the unconscious girl away, only to be discovered next to her in his underwear.

I had mixed feelings about this film. Naturally, I was happy that the young man went to the girl's rescue, but I wasn't necessarily thrilled that she needed that kind of rescue in the first place. Can the viewer safely assume that when she regains consciousness, she'll share the story of his heroics, since she now has cause not to despise him? Or does she still consider him a dickhead?

I also had mixed feelings because the young woman was unnecessarily nasty in her name-calling, but at the same time, recent events have made me more aware that not all women want the kind of puppy dog adoration with which the main character was following her around. Somehow in such stories -- the films Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) and Say Anything (1989) come to mind -- the fact that these young men are quirky and unique and nice is supposed to imply that their interest is pure, yet in reality, they are still lusting after the prettiest girl in their school or their community because of the girl's beauty, which is superficial. As Lea Thompson's character puts it when referring to the portrait Eric Stolz's Keith has painted of her, "What's hanging in that museum, huh? My soul? No, it's my face."

While I admit I feel a little guilty about laying such a burden on this short film, I'm trying to explain why I was not personally charmed by the story, even though I think part of the film's intention was to charm, in a way. But this is just my interpretation, and I suspect others might have a different experience viewing this film.

* * *
My next Worldfest-Houston post will cover Sunday's "Sci Fi Shorts." In the meantime, click here to see my other reviews of Worldfest-Houston short film screenings from previous years.

[Edited to add: For a variety of reasons, I am unable to review the other sessions of short films that I saw. My apologies!]

Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2017: Animation/Family Shorts

The 50th Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival

Animation/Family Shorts
Sunday, April 23, 2017, 1:00 p.m.
* * *
The animation short film category always tends to be strong at Worldfest-Houston, and this year was no exception. The category also encompassed several family shorts without animation this year, some of them just as strong. Overall, this has been my favorite category so far this year.

* * *

Waterbaby

Director: Pia Shah
Screenwriter: Pia Shah
Length: 14:49 minutes
Category: Family/Children
Country: India
Link: Complete film on Vimeo

In "Waterbaby", a boy named Melvin lives in the coastal town of Goa, but is afraid of water after being thrown into it as a young child; this fear makes him the target of bullies during swimming lessons at school. After being invited to a pool party by the new girl in his class, Melvin finds courage by remembering the adventures of his favorite cartoon superhero, who happens to have a goldfish sidekick.

This film was sweet and just the right length, and I enjoyed how the small amount of animation was integrated. Some of the film's music was so pretty that I'd love to find a recording of it. "Waterbaby" is a simple story, but the writer/director added some depth by indicating that Melvin's father was neglectful of both wife and son, with behavior verging on mental cruelty.

The only thing about the film that bothered me was the way Melvin spoke to his mother, snapping at her not to touch his things, and complaining about the food she fixed for him without thanks of any kind. It's possible this was meant simply to show his agitation, but I found it unfortunate that he didn't treat his mother much better than his father did. Overall, however, this film left me with a good feeling.

* * *

Fox and the Whale

Director: Robin Joseph
Length: 12:03 minutes
Category: Animation/Family-Children
Country: Canada
Link: Film trailer on YouTube

The only way to describe "Fox and the Whale" is to call it a gorgeous piece of animation. The viewer follows a simply rendered fox as it explores nature, and in particular searches for an elusive and mysterious whale. I liked the juxtaposition of the fox's minimal, shape-based body (triangles for the head and legs) with the more complex shapes, shadows, and reflections of the various environments through which it passes.

Overall, this piece was both beautiful and soothing, like one of those CDs with a babbling brook intertwined with the music. In addition, there was a lovely attention to detail; the fox's tail never stopped moving, and its reflection in the wet sand on the beach was always visible. "Fox and the Whale" was just a pleasure to watch.

* * *

Quitting Time

Director: Robert Dollase
Screenwriter: Robert Dollase
Length: 9:20 minutes
Category: Animation
Country: United States
Link: Various download links for film

If I had gone to the theater to see a big studio blockbuster movie, and seen this particular animated short preceding it, I wouldn't have blinked an eye. It was so polished and clever that it looked like it came from a major animation studio itself.

The program's synopsis says that "in the age of dinosaurs, a stubborn and obstinate time traveler refuses to learn the lessons of this future." What it doesn't say is how hilarious this film is, as the mad scientist time traveler ignores his future self's warnings about meddling in the past, and the two versions of him actually come to blows.

* * *

Papa Under Water

Director: Welf Reinhart
Length: 8:30 minutes
Category: Family/Children
Country: Germany
Link: Film's IMDB page

** MINOR SPOILERS BELOW **

In this family-oriented short film, a boy who feels neglected by his stressed-out father occupies himself by cleaning his goldfish's aquarium, but he accidentally endangers the fish, and ends up flooding his father's work area, including his computer and paperwork. The father is angry at first but then sees an opportunity to reconnect with his son.

Like "Waterbaby", this was a heartfelt film with a good message, and I quite enjoyed it. I did think the father's transition from anger to affection was slightly rushed and unexplained, but I'm still glad it went in that direction.

* * *

Falling in the Flowers

Director: Yating Liang
Screenwriters: Yating Liang, Christopher L. Adam
Length: 12:14 minutes
Category: Family/Children
Country: United States
Link: Demo reel on IMDB

** MINOR SPOILERS BELOW **

A young girl with low self-esteem finds herself ignored or ridiculed by her peers, until a gardener named Mr. Ted gives her a flower that he says makes the wearer beautiful. The girl is amazed how much difference her newfound confidence makes, then realizes she wasn't wearing the flower after all, but had rather dropped it before setting out to go home.

This was a sweet film, but I felt as though Mr. Ted's role and lines were a little too on the nose. His interaction with the girl seemed forced to me, as though he was a generic "wise old man." I did like the message for the most part, but it was conveyed and resolved so simplistically that it wasn't quite as effective as I might have liked.

* * *

Not Real

Director: Michael Nicholls
Screenwriter: Michael Nicholls
Length: 6:02 minutes
Category: Family/Children
Country: Australia
Link: Film's trailer on Vimeo

I adored this film. A young boy is horrified when his father tells him that Santa Claus isn't real. When his baby sister sleepwalks and happens upon the parents trying to put together "Santa's" gifts on Christmas Eve, the boy has to decide whether to take his disappointment out on his parents, or keep the magic alive for his sister.

At just over six minutes, this film manages to tell a whole story, and it includes some funny bits in which the boy imagines his parents' malicious delight at having deceived him. And even though appearances shouldn't matter this much, I have to say that the baby sister may have been the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen. Seriously, the face of an angel.

But my picture above shows the boy instead, because it was his story, and the young actor did a terrific job. I would list his name, but the acting credits in the program book don't specify which actor played which role.


* * *

First Snow

Director: Lenka Ivancikova
Screenwriters: Lenka Ivancikova
Length: 13:34 minutes
Category: Family/Children (listed); Animation (my categorization)
Country: Czech Republish
Link: Film's trailer

In this film, a young hedgehog wakes up and goes exploring while its parents lay sleeping. While on its adventure, the hedgehog experiences its first snow and is entranced until it realizes that it can't see the familiar landmarks to find its way back to its den.

*** MINOR SPOILERS BELOW ***

Story-wise, "First Snow" is simple but effective. The hedgehog encounters danger when it is stalked by a fox, but fortunately for the hedgehog, the fox is stalked by something else in return. I cringed a little at the violence of the encounter, but it's not as though it was gratuitous or even gory -- it's just a personal trigger for me to see animals of any kind in danger. But there was nothing wrong with including this bit of realism in the film, and since our viewpoint character has a happy ending, I can't complain.

Technically speaking, the animation was extremely accomplished, and the depiction of the full moon was enchanting.

* * *

Green Light

Director: Seongmin Kim
Screenwriters: Seongmin Kim; Woojin Chang
Length: 15:33 minutes
Category: Animation
Country: Korea
Link: Film's trailer on YouTube

"Green Light" was a good film on which to end the session; it had the most polished animation of any of the entries, and told a sweet if predictable story. In an post-environmental-disaster world, a young girl encounters a broken battle robot and fixes him, after which it joins her in her efforts to re-seed the barren landscape with plants. Unfortunately another battle robot happens upon the scene and, presumably following its original program, engages the first robot in battle, with tragic consequences but an ultimately hopeful message.

While the message of this film isn't subtle, it happens to be a message I agree with, so it's hard for me to find fault with it. I was reminded of Wall-E, both in story and style. I also liked the film's lack of dialogue -- and I loved the swiveling "bunny ears" on the young girl's environmental suit. Finally, the landscape vistas were breathtaking.

* * *
My next post will be on Monday's "Texas Shorts" session.

* * *
Click here to see my other reviews of Worldfest-Houston short film screenings from this and previous years.

* * * Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2017: Sci-Fi Shorts

The 50th Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival

Sci-Fi Shorts
Saturday, April 22, 2017, 3:00 p.m.
* * *

Rebel Scum

Director: Timothy Van Nguyen
Screenwriter: Paul Van Nguyen
Length: 9:07 minutes
Category: Animation/Sci-Fi
Country: Canada
Links: Official film

In this Star Wars fan film, a Rebel pilot is stranded following the battle on Hoth. After destroying an Imperial probe droid, he finds a wounded Stormtrooper and comes up with a way to save himself.

This short film is obviously a true labor of love. In fact, it so accurately recreates the atmosphere of The Empire Strikes Back that I initially wondered if it was using footage from the original movie, but the filmmakers' website says that it was made "over a period of 2 months on the Athabasca Glacier situated on the Columbia icefield in Alberta, Canada." When an AT-AT, aka Imperial Walker, comes into view, the difference in skill level between the original material and this film are slightly more apparent, but the stop-motion animation was still incredibly impressive.

[MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW]

At a scant nine minutes long, this work seemed to be more about the technical challenges than about the actual story. There is a plot, of course; the pilot exchanges his flight suit for the Stormtrooper's snow armor, presumably enabling himself to hitch a ride off-planet with the Empire. But the plot is very slight indeed.

While I don't want to undermine the success of the film's technical execution, two things kept me from fully enjoying the story. First, I knew that the Stormtrooper was a woman the moment I saw her even though her armor was identical to every other Imperial soldier and she was sitting down, so if her gender was intended to be a surprise, it didn't work for me. Second, I didn't believe the Rebel pilot could exchange their apparel so completely out in the bitter cold.

My minor nitpicks notwithstanding, the filmmakers deserve a lot of credit for the amount of work put into this short film.

* * *

Windows

Director: Maru Buendia-Senties
Screenwriter: Maru Buendia-Senties
Length: 13:00 minutes
Category: Sci-Fi
Country: United States
Link: Film's webpage

This little bilingual (English and Spanish) film was a real treat, visually and otherwise. A woman living in an almost-all-white apartment goes jogging before coming back home to work at some unspecified task on a transparent computer display. Her routine rarely varies, although she does take time out to fold colorful origami hot air balloons, which provide not only the apartment's only color, but also it's only non-functional decor. One day she is surprised and pleased to see another woman through her transparent window, but when she tries to locate the other woman's apartment, she keeps ending up back where she started.

I won't spoil this one, but I will say that the story was right up my alley. The visuals, including creative camera angles, striking white-and-color contrasts, and computer graphics, were stunning. The spare dialogue was effective, and even the music was notable, resulting in a lovely short film that proves how much story can be told in a short time. My only quibble is that I felt the third character, shown only briefly, was unnecessary.

* * *

Might

Director: Emil Sallinen
Screenwriter: Emil Sallinen
Length: 8:53 minutes
Category: Sci-Fi
Country: Finland
Link: Film's trailer

In "Might", the viewer is transported back and forth between scenes showing a female rebel entering some kind of tomb or ruin and being captured, and the same female standing with three other condemned prisoners in a futuristic coliseum while a religious overlord addresses the vast crowd that is there to witness the executions.

[MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW]

While I liked the look of this film, I found it a bit difficult to follow what was going on. The program description says that Maryam is a rebel leader who is "set to prove that the god hovering in the sky is a lie." But she is stopped by "a holy warrior that turns out to be her lost father. Soon their lives change as they are about to find out a secret only a god can keep."

Unfortunately, I did not take any of that away from my viewing of the film. While it was obvious that the rebel knew the older male warrior who at first tried to capture her and then took her side, only to be arrested along with her, I'm not sure there was any way the audience could figure out their actual relationship. My initial take on the story before reading the description was that the woman was a tomb raider of some kind, and the place she entered was the ancient ruin of the place where the executions had taken place long before, possibly thousands of years ago. I thought that perhaps the ruins retained some kind of telepathic or empathic energy, making this woman briefly flash back to what had happened to the actual rebel, so that she feels as though she is experiencing it herself even though it happened to someone else long before. I probably went in this mental direction because that's something a Star Trek episode would do, and to be honest, I think it would have been a more interesting story this way.

At any rate, the film looked polished, and gave off the vibe of an interesting video game set-up, but for me the storytelling was a little muddled.

* * *

Amoriph

Director: April Campion
Screenwriter: Greg Beck
Length: 13:41 minutes
Category: Drama/Sci-Fi
Country: United States
Link: Film's IMDB page

This film begins with a PSA announcement stating that contamination in the water supply has led to a pandemic; citizens must therefore seek treatment before it's too late, and be mindful of the boundaries of the protective zones. A doctor in a hospital works frantically on a cure, while a law enforcement or military officer ominously warns him not to do anything he will regret. Without getting into spoilers, I can say that the plot veers towards a somewhat generic dystopian police state story. The specifics of the plague were not terribly clear, in part because the doctor conveniently tells his wife that he doesn't have time to explain any details to her.

Although there were some aspects of the story that showed promise, I was bothered by the fact that the officer was rather clichéd, showing up suddenly at various times and somehow knowing that the doctor was defying him. In addition, it bothers me when films show some characters in hazmat suits while other characters at the exact same location wear no protection at all. It always makes me feel as though the hazmat suits are just there to show the audience that the situation is "serious," but that's kind of thrown out the window by leaving other characters completely vulnerable. It's possible the argument could be made that only the workers who have to try and physically restrain an infected patient need suits, but I don't really buy that. In addition, the film ends abruptly with little resolution.

* * *

Alibi

Director: Cameron Burnett
Screenwriter: Cameron Burnett
Length: 33:05 minutes
Category: Drama
Country: United States
Link: Film's IMDB page

Due to technical difficulties, two films scheduled for this session couldn't be screened, and a work titled "Alibi", which was a straight drama piece, was substituted instead. At 33 minutes, it was the longest film in the session, which was unfortunate since it wasn't science fiction. In any case, it was beautifully acted, although I found it a little slow in its pacing and not as engaging as I'd hoped it would be. A young man sleeps with his brother's wife, goes for an early morning walk in a fit of guilt, and stumbles upon a murder scene. Because his alibi would reveal their adultery, he refuses to defend himself because he doesn't want to hurt his brother.

I'm afraid I found the story quite predictable, although that's not to say it wasn't moving. The three leads (Judah McFadden, Lorynn York, and Nate Scholz) were fantastic, and set the acting bar so high that the other, more minor performances suffered a little by comparison. I also thought that this film had a polish to it that was a cut above most of the other film festival works I've seen in the last few years. For instance, it's a small thing, but the sets looked completely natural, rather than staged or self-conscious. Little things do matter.

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My next post will be on Sunday's "Animated / Family Shorts."

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Click here to see my other reviews of Worldfest-Houston short film screenings from this and previous years.

* * * Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2017: Comedy-Romantic / Dark Shorts

The 50th Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival

Comedy-Romantic/Dark Shorts
Saturday, April 22, 2017, 1:00 p.m.
In what has become an April tradition for me, today I attended the first two of several short film sessions at Worldfest-Houston, a terrific film festival that's now in its fiftieth year. The first session was a category I haven't seen in this festival since I started attending in 2014: Comedy-Romantic/Dark Shorts.

Before I get started on individual films, I wanted to note that two trends jumped out for me today: 1) many of the films this year were crowd-funded, based on the credits listing Kickstarter and Indiegogo backers; and 2) a high percentage of the films had terrific cinematography, using unusual camera angles to great effect.

Spoilers may occur in individual reviews, but I'll mark them so folks can avoid them if they want to.

* * *

Ctrl-Z

Director: James Kennedy
Screenwriter: James Kennedy
Length: 23:19 minutes
Category: Comedy/Romantic (listed); Sci-Fi/Dark Comedy (my categorization)
Country: United Kingdom
Link: Film's Kickstarter page

This first film was a treat, and elicited a lot of laughter from the audience. Ed, a hopeless romantic with a crush on a beautiful young woman sitting near him in a diner, has invented a device that lets him choose a "save point" to which he will always return when he dies. This means that each time he screws up in his awkward attempts to approach the woman, all he has to do is kill himself and he can have another go at it. Meanwhile, Ed's actual dining companion, a platonic female friend, is becoming mighty annoyed that Ed is willing to suck her and other people into his ongoing time loop without considering the consequences.

Although this film could easily have been labeled as pure sci-fi, it truly was a dark comedy, and actors Edward Easton and Kath Hughes had just the right comedic timing and delivery. I did miss some of the dialogue due to the actors' accents (and the fact that they kept talking with food in their mouths), but what I did hear was pretty damn funny, and overall the film was quite polished. And this is one film for which I won't spoil the ending, because to do so in this case would be criminal.

P.S. - Click on the poster to enlarge it enough to see the words -- they're as funny as the film was!


* * *

Bank Robber's Serenade
(orig: Braquage Sérénade)

Director: Guillaume de Ginestel
Screenwriter: Guillaume de Ginestel
Length: 22:56 minutes
Category: Comedy-Black/Dark (listed); Comedy-Romantic/Dark (my categorization)
Country: France
Link: Film's IMDB page

A bank robber in love with one of his early heist victims has stalked her -- via repeated robberies -- all over town for several years. As this film opens, he has finally worked up the courage to kidnap her in order to declare his love, all while wearing his customary ski mask. His partner sits in the car as well, suffering from a gunshot wound but still playing the supportive wingman to the best of his ability.

I found this film both funny and endearing. Not that I exactly condone stalking someone and committing repeated felonies in the name of love, but I think the audience was pretty much rooting for the robber in spite of his tenuous grasp on reality and his tendency to write terrible poetry. There's also a terrific moment when the sidekick's girlfriend shows up to support her man as well.

Finally, the cinematography in this film was gorgeous.


* * *

Beyond Shattered Lenses

Director: Avree Ito-Fujita
Screenwriter: Avree Ito-Fujita
Length: 10:26 minutes
Category: Drama/Mix Media(listed); Sci-Fi / Comedy (my categorization)
Country: United States
Link: Film's Facebook page

In this film, a lowly office worker named Travis is furious when the mean boss lady deliberately steps on his glasses, then is surprised when those same glasses portray the people around him according to how he feels about them: said boss lady is a devil wreathed in a halo of flames; several co-workers are mindless robots; and the pretty tall co-worker looks like she's auditioning for a Noxzema commercial, complete with hair blowing in the breeze.

Although the film's concept was cute, the evil boss is so over-the-top that it was hard to get past her. Not only did she torment Travis, she also pours coffee on Travis's boss's report and then fires him for being clumsy, even though we weren't led to believe that she hated him the way she did Travis. Also, while this is a petty complaint, I kept noticing how deliberately props were placed where they would be needed for the next bit of action. Of course, props do have to be put in the right places, but the set never looked natural or realistic to me.

I also felt that some of the dialogue wasn't thought through. Travis's boss says he can't lose his job because his woman wants to go somewhere fancy on their honeymoon. This would imply to me that he's not married yet, but he's wearing a wedding ring. And then at one point he's approached by an attractive colleague and he pockets her number with a big smile, implying that he plans to follow up with her. This, from a man who is so recently married that he hasn't even gone on his honeymoon yet. These are small things, but they're also unnecessary distractions.

I will note that there was one adorable moment when Travis and the boss lady face off with each other, using cardboard tubes that glow like lightsabers courtesy of the broken spectacles, and an animated tumbleweed rolls across the cubicle farm to the music of a classic western showdown. That made me laugh out loud.

* * *

Hi-Glow Retro

Director: Alex Morsanutto
Screenwriter: Alex Morsanutto
Length: 13:52 minutes
Category: Comedy-Romantic
Country: United States
Link: Film's IMDB page

This film starts out with scenes rapidly flashing by in which a high school student named Tommy finds himself in the spotlight at a wild and crazy party. In retrospect, I think we're meant to view this as a product of Tommy's imagination, but while viewing the film, I thought that Tommy's moment of glory was actually happening, and we were going to get the "here's how we got here" flashback.

Alas, that isn't quite what happened. We do go back in time a week, to when Tommy's love interest promises to dance with him if he'll come to the school's retro seventies disco party, but when the big day arrives, he doesn't exactly become the life of the party, at least not in a positive way. He experiences an epic fail, even after preparing all week by paying a sexy, tough co-worker to teach him to dance.

There was a lot to like about this film. Tommy was nerdy in a charming way, and the editing work, with lots of rapid cuts, seemed quite expert. I enjoyed the dance lesson scenes, except that I couldn't help comparing them to the ones in The Silver Linings Playbook, in which Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper similarly prepare for a big dance night.


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Loveology

Director: Mark D. Manalo
Screenwriter: Amy Lowe Starbin
Length: 13:52 minutes
Category: Suspense/Thriller (listed); Drama (my categorization)
Country: United States
Link: Contest page for this film's movie poster

Well, this film certainly must have an identity crisis! The program book lists it as "suspense/thriller" but I didn't see it as either that, or as a romantic dark comedy; instead, I found this to be straight drama. Fiona is a college student and a virgin, and is particularly frustrated by the latter condition. While slowly developing a relationship with a sexy co-worker, she re-connects with her on-again off-again estranged mother. The usual family tensions are heightened when her mother reveals that she has advanced colectoral cancer but cannot afford the recommended therapy. Fiona vows to find the money, and ends up heading in an unexpected direction.

On the plus side, the acting was fantastic all around; Renee Faia, who plays the mother, was particularly effective. (She also reminded me of a younger, more natural version of Cher.) On the other hand, I felt as though the film ended in the wrong place. While I believe that a lot can be left unsaid in storytelling, the abruptness of the ending, and the lack of true resolution, was a little frustrating.

On a side note, I didn't really understand the film's title until I looked up the word "loveology," and found it described as "a theology of love." That makes sense. Fiona's preoccupation with religion and saving herself for marriage is challenged on more than one front, and it also rang true to me that a young woman whose mother was often not there (alcoholism is strongly implied) would turn to religion in an effort to find structure and meaning in her life.

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My next post will be on Saturday's "Sci Fi Shorts."

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Click here to see my other reviews of Worldfest-Houston short film screenings from this and previous years. Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2016: Summing Up

This year, I saw twenty-six short films in four sessions over two days.... As always, I enjoyed most of what I saw of Worldfest-Houston. I was sad to miss the animated short film and NASA short film categories, but glad I got to see so much science fiction.

My favorite films from each of the sessions I saw were:

Comedy Shorts

Favorite: The Ballad of Ella Plummhoff, directed by Barbara Kronenberg

Runner-up: Ms. Vanilla, directed by 徐子悅 (Hsu Tsu-yueh)


Sci-Fi Shorts (International)

Favorite: Beautiful Dreamer, directed by David Gaddie


Sci-Fi/Thriller Shorts

Favorite: The Clock Makers Dream, directed by Cashell Horgan


Sci-Fi Shorts #2

Favorite: As You Were by Trevon Matcek


* * * Overall Festival Favorite * * *

The Ballad of Ella Plummhoff, directed by Barbara Kronenberg


Final Thoughts

After three years of watching short films at Worldfest-Houston, I've noticed a few things. The biggest trend is that so many short films deal with grief, or at least loss. In looking back over my write-ups of the 26 short films I saw this year, eight of them were specifically about grief. Another six were about loss (of home, memory, freedom, soul/lifeforce, Earth, or limbs). Only twelve of the films (fewer than half!) didn't fit neatly into one of those two categories, and for a few of those, an argument could be made that they actually did edge in there.

Honestly, I'd like to see a little less of obvious dystopian futures, and a little less about grieving, but I can understand why grief in particular is such a compelling subject for filmmakers.

Looking ahead to next year, it looks like I may not have my usual conflict, so I may get to see even more short film sessions. I hope so!

Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2016: Sci-Fi Shorts #2

The 49th Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival
Sci-Fi Shorts #2, Sunday, April 17, 2016
This was the last of four short film sessions that I saw at this year's Worldfest-Houston. More sci-fi!

The Roma Project
Director: Harry Keenan
Screenwriter: Evan Scott Russell
Length: 19:37 minutes
Category: Science fiction
Country: USA
Film's Facebook page

A young man wakes up in a mental institution, and is told he's been in a car accident that killed his mother. He dreams of a woman (it's not clear to me if it's his mother; I assume so but she seems very young) in a meadow with a tattoo on her wrist, and is asked to describe the dream repeatedly. Eventually he realizes something odd is going on, particularly when he sees the tattoo symbol on some hospital, and notices armed guards stationed outside of the room where he meets with the "doctor." [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] Ultimately, the young man learns that he has powerful telekinetic powers, and breaks out with another patient he has befriended. From the tattoo "clue," I inferred that the place had been experimenting on his mother at some point, perhaps while he was in the womb.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with this film, and I thought it was very well-acted, but it didn't tread a lot of new ground so I didn't find it particularly memorable.

Tomorrow's Dream
Director: David Gould
Screenwriter: David Gould
Length: 06:40 minutes
Category: Science fiction
Country: New Zealand
Film's Facebook page

This piece had a theme that I've now seen a number of times in short films: a man frantically works, to the point of endangering his own life, to find some way, any way, to bring back the (usually tragically killed) love of his life. In Ben Goodger's Anamnesis, a young man uses some kind of alien lifeform to keep replaying the perfect last day; in Ronald Eltanal's Nostalgic, an aging scientist takes an experimental drug that lets him see his now-dead wife, even as it prevents him from forming new memories; and here, a young man invents a time machine to insert his current consciousness into his former self to try to prevent his girlfriend's death.

In spite of the inherent predictability in such a film, I found Tomorrow's Dream refreshing in its relative simplicity and length -- it managed to get an entire relationship and story across in under seven minutes. My husband and I had different interpretations of the young man's ultimate fate, but that was part of the fun. I also liked the relative low-tech of the time machine's appearance.

Targeted Advertising
Director: Mitchell Rose
Screenwriter: Mitchell Rose
Length: 03:54 minutes
Category: Science fiction/Comedy
Country: USA
Film on YouTube

Like Cruxberry, which I saw in an earlier session during this festival, Targeted Advertising does not try to tell a hugely complex story, but instead effectively manages to get across a single concept in under four minutes. The program book calls this "a sci-fi aerial dance-film" in which "spambot drones chase a fleeing populace blasting ads for Viagra, hair loss products, and other exciting values."

If you are ever online -- and you are, if you're reading this -- you will definitely get the point of this film. It was a lot of fun, particularly the ending. You can watch it in its entirety at the link above.

As You Were
Director: Trevon Matcek
Screenwriter: Trevon Matcek
Length: 22:00 minutes
Category: Science fiction
Country: USA
Film on YouTube

This film is about Johnner, a soldier who returns home with high-tech prosthetic limbs to replace the ones he lost in combat, and finds he has to reconnect not just with himself, but also with his wife, children, and society in general. Because that society has become leery of robots, Johnner has difficulty finding even a simple job, but he eventually finds some balance.

This film was moving, and the acting terrific. I liked the montage of prospective employers thanking the veteran ever so earnestly for his service while clearly hoping he would just get the hell out of their offices. There was one part of the film that didn't quite make sense to me, however: Johnner does finally find a job working with hazardous robotic materials, and wears a hazmat suit while breaking things apart and moving them, but people without protection seem to be standing no more than a few yards away without being in danger. It's just not clear what he's actually doing on this job, so it felt like a convenient excuse to have Johnner flash back on the drone that caused his injuries.

My only other quibble is that I thought the anti-robot graffiti that Johnner encounters while out jogging was a little heavy-handed. Overall, however, I thought this film was very well done. And extra bonus points for the nod to the Terminator franchise. Also while jogging (with a cute bit in which Johnner kicks the soccer ball, inadvertently sending it into next week), he encounters two boys named Kyle and Reese. Yep, I see what you did there....

Silent Night
Director: Nastassja Djalog
Screenwriter: Nastassja Djalog
Length: 11:04 minutes
Category: Science fiction
Country: Australia
Trailer

A nurse shows up at the bedside of a woman who has just given birth, swabs the inside of the baby's cheek, and learns that it will die around age fifty of cancer. For that reason, the "system" decides that the baby is unprofitable for society, and the nurse carries out her duty.

After which the nurse goes outside on a break and smokes a cigarette.

Don't get me wrong -- the nurse smoking is not the point of the film; it's window-dressing to show how distressed she is by her job. Movies, and especially short films, use this all the time: if you want the audience to see that a character is stressed, show them smoking a cigarette. But I really had trouble getting past this little detail when we were just told a baby was unprofitable because it would die a half century later of cancer. It seems to me that the possible lung cancer, and almost certain emphysema and heart disease, that this nurse is trying to give herself would be a lot less profitable.

Other than that, this film was quite decent. It's not particularly believable, but it does make the point that far too often, human lives are valued in dollars and cents. [SOME SPOILERS AHEAD] I did like the little touch that people being "released" (for lack of a better word) are given images of happy memories to watch. Initially, I didn't buy the way these images were retrieved from the patient's "identification." For instance, for an older man, his law diploma was fed into a wall slot, and the screen returned actual video of him graduating and receiving an award. For a young boy whose mother has "surrendered" him, the nurse puts a birthday card into the slot, and home-shot video of the birthday party comes up. It took me a while, but then I realized that Facebook can almost do this already, with the diploma, at least. Surely Facebook's algorithms can take the man's name and the school's name, call up any related video that is online (and what isn't online these days?), and perform facial recognition to make sure it got the right material. And this stuff is only going to get more sophisticated.

All in all, this chilling short film was worth watching. That smoking bit really bothered me, but upon reflection it occurs to me that it could be the nurse daring the system to tell her that she's not profitable, a way of dealing with the guilt by flirting with elimination herself. Maybe that's a reach, but if that's what was intended, it changes things for me a bit.

Zero
Director: David Victori
Screenwriter: David Victori
Length: 29:00 minutes
Category: Science fiction
Country: USA
Episode 1 on YouTube
(approx. 9 minutes)

The opening and closing credits for this film make a big deal of the fact that Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender are attached to it, and indeed, this film has impressive special effects and cinematography. But I'm afraid I had significant issues with both the science and the plot.

A father trying to cope with his grieving son is on his way to work one day when Earth's gravity sort of turns off. Not all at once, but rather by degrees, so that at first little pebbles and bits of debris float around, then bigger and bigger things. Then, after gravity has somehow turned itself back on and everything has fallen back to the ground again, the father rushes home to check on his son, who has run off to the site where his mother was killed in a car accident. There he finds the man responsible for that accident. Convenient, but I can kind of accept it -- the man says that he thought the gravity phenomenon was a sign of the end times, so perhaps it makes sense that he would return to the scene of his greatest sin.

Aside from the gravity problem, then, I can live with these developments so far. But the gravity is a big issue. Consider the fact that the gravity on Mars is roughly one third of that on Earth. That doesn't mean that pennies and nickels and dimes sitting on the surface of Mars would just start floating because they're lighter than people or cars. Gravity is either one or off, so everything would be equally affected.

Even if I accept for the sake of the story that a gravity anomaly would work like that, however, the father-and-son story also became problematic for me. [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] Just as the father is chasing his son, the phenomenon strikes again. The boy latches on to an antenna tower, but then tells his father he's ready to go find his mother in heaven, and deliberately lets go, floating up and away. Bigger and bigger items start getting pulled up, and the boy goes out of sight completely. And then the switch flips again and everything starts falling. The boy conveniently falls into water (he probably would have been instantly killed from that height anyway) and the father rushes to save him while avoiding falling debris, but the boy is unresponsive. So the father carries him for several minutes until he gets to a place where a handful of people have gathered to help each other if they can, and then performs CPR. If he didn't know CPR it would have been one thing, but he knew it and didn't bother performing it right away! And then it's to no avail -- until the gravity switches off again, which coaxes the water out of the boy's lungs all by itself.

Sigh.... And then the boy wakes up and immediately has the huge emotional, screaming grief breakthrough that's been a long time coming, when actually he should have been brain dead by that point. And the man who killed his mother has also conveniently shown up at this location so they can all get some closure together.

I apologize -- it feels a little unfair that I'm being this nitpicky. But I just don't feel that the two main components of this film, i.e. an implausible science phenomenon and grief, went together naturally. It's fine, of course, to explore grief against any background or scenario, but in my mind that scenario needs to be integrated and at least somewhat plausible.

* * * * *
Click here to see all of my other reviews of Worldfest-Houston short film screenings from this and previous years.

Read more!

Worldfest-Houston 2016: Sci-Fi/Thriller Shorts

The 49th Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival
Sci-Fi/Thriller Shorts, Sunday, April 17, 2016

A Shadow of Dara

Director: Kirill Proskura
Screenwriters: Kirill Proskura, Andy Mihov
Length: 14:15 minutes
Category: Science fiction (listed)
Country: UK
Film's website

I quite liked the first half of this film, in which a group of human rebels enter a virtual reality environment to warn Dara, an imprisoned alien commander, that he's being duped into giving away critical information. The initial set-up is very much like (perhaps even too much like) The Matrix, to the extent that one of the rebels is essentially transmitting herself into the VR to convince the commander that it's not real and he needs to get out. But I really enjoyed the oddball office scenario into which the commander has been put; his "co-workers" keep acting bizarrely and asking him for important numbers, the reason for which is later revealed.

Unfortunately, when the commander does leave the VR environment, the film falls short for me. The alien race that has imprisoned Dara is effectively portrayed, with polished costumes, make-up, and even an invented alien language. But the story becomes a bit muddled and the dialog a bit trite at this point. [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] The rebels are from the future, and are trying to prevent Dara from giving away Earth's coordinates to the aliens, who in the original timeline have destroyed both Earth and Dara's home. Dara inexplicably becomes arrogant and calls himself a god, which I think we're meant to take at least semi-literally. He has no apparent gratitude for the humans who've rescued him, and ultimately the group simply escapes in a pod, while the bad aliens hint darkly that they already have the information they need. This ending made the film feel a bit like a video game prologue; the tiny band of rebels lives to fight another day.

Cruxberry

Director: Jamie Oon
Screenwriter: Jamie Oon
Length: 3:53 minutes
Category: Science fiction
Country: Canada
Film's IMDB page

In this extremely short but effective film, a young woman, wearing a simple white dress in a futuristic white cell of some kind, answers questions and is rewarded with a sweet berry when she gets it right. At first, the questions are mainly about the berries themselves and the young woman has no problem, but when questions such as "what is your purpose" pop up, she becomes confused.

[MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] Eventually, we see that on the other side of the one-way touch screen, a woman in a lab coat sits, posing the questions -- and she is identical to the woman in the cell. I took this to mean that the woman in the cell was a clone, and she was being tested to determine whether she could learn and/or gain a moral compass.

I felt this film was exactly the right length -- any longer and it would have become too repetitive. As it was, I found it to be clever and refreshing. I also note that the director and writer was also the film's sole cast member.

Burned

Director: Jaime Valdueza
Screenwriter: Jaime Valdueza
Length: 17:00 minutes
Category: Suspense/Thriller
Country: USA
Trailer

In this film, Jason has been hiding out in a rundown hotel for reasons related to a sensational murder being reported on the news. He reluctantly agrees to accompany his new girlfriend, Lila, to a small get-together at a house out in the sticks, and becomes agitated when one of his hosts takes a photograph that might put him in danger.

[MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] This film had a pretty awesome twist: the audience assumes that Jason is the eyewitness that the reporters say is on the run for his own safety, when in fact he's the murderer. Once the other man at the gathering puts two and two together, Jason kills him, that man's girlfriend, and ultimately Lila.

While I thought this was clever and well-acted, I didn't quite understand why Jason had to kill Lila. The photo of him had already been posted online at that point, so Jason should have just run -- it's not as though he had to silence Lila about his being there since that would already be known. There's a voice-over about trust, so it's possible that in Jason's twisted mind, he believes that Lila has betrayed him even though she really hasn't. I understand more why he killed the other two people, who were more confrontational, but he kills Lila when she's trying to hide from him in the house. His two choices are to kill Lila and have it be known that he's now responsible for three more murders, or to not kill Lila and have it be known that he's now responsible for two more murders. Killing her does nothing to improve his situation.

Unfortunately for the audience, the sound system broke down partway through this film, making it sound like it was being projected underwater, so it's possible I missed something in the voice-over that would shed some light on Jason's motive for killing Lila. In spite of the technical glitch, which was the fault of the theater rather than the film, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It did a great job building suspense.

Bang Bang Club

Director: Jason Chan, Christian Lee
Screenwriters: Jason Chan, Christian Lee
Length: 19:31 minutes
Category: Suspense/Thriller
Country: USA
Partial film (4:18 minutes) on Vimeo
(listed as Episode 1 of a web series)

I found this film to be action-packed, a bit strange (a good thing), a bit convoluted (not a good thing), and a little too long. In addition, the film's description in the festival program book is not how I understood the film at all. What I saw was this: two young men wearing masks break into a building to shoot a young man at a computer. In flashbacks, we learn that they were recruited by a beautiful young woman who made them believe she was going to kill them, but instead her gun shot "bang bang" stickers onto their foreheads. She also trained them in hand-to-hand combat, rather brutally. At this point, the film felt like a cross between Fight Club, Wanted, and that dormitory game called "Assassin."

[MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] Alas, when the two men shoot the computer guy, they're slow to realize that the gun has actual bullets this time; naturally, they panic and run. They're confronted by two security guards and almost apprehended, but fight their way out. They end up ... somewhere, and paranoia sets in as one man suspects the other one of switching out the gun to frame him (even though they did "rock paper scissors" when deciding which of them would shoot the guy). A big martial arts fight ensues, and we see that the woman and another man are watching them on video, via some very conveniently placed cameras. The woman tries to convince her companion that it's time to stop since there's a live gun in play, but he wants to let things continue. Finally, they remotely play back the footage of the murder and the men fighting, to the men themselves (as if that proves anything), and the woman welcomes them to the Bang Bang Club.

Although I liked parts of this, I was unfortunately left with too many questions. First, I thought they were welcomed to the Bang Bang Club when the woman first shot them with the stickers. I can accept that maybe that was preliminary, and that this operation is a test or initiation of some kind, but to prove what? That upon learning they actually killed someone, their instinct would be to fight rather than surrender to the authorities? Were the woman and her companion testing them to see if they actually were willing to kill someone? That would be an unsuccessful test, since they didn't know what they were doing. Or is involving them in an actual murder a way to compel them to start working for the club as real assassins whether they want to or not?

And here's the film's description, which I didn't read until after seeing the film: Banks control the world beyond our imaginations. When one bank strips away the livelihood of two young men, they take revenge by joining an elite assassins training group: The Bang Bang Club. Only problem is that the club has links all the way to the highest financial powers of the world and has other plans for them: covert murders and their own demise.

So now I'm completely confused. I didn't see their livelihood being stripped away. This also implies that the two young men knowingly joined an assassins' training group, but the big bad guys have "secret" plans to have the young men, you know, assassinate people. They also don't kill the men, so what's that about their demise? The woman's companion must be the big bad bank guy, but I don't remember finances so much as being mentioned, although I could be mistaken in that regard.

Overall, I guess I felt this just needed a bit more discipline and focus.

Madness

Directors: Shannon Kohli, Michelle Brezinski
Screenwriter: Michelle Brezinski
Length: 09:57 minutes
Category: Drama/Thriller
Country: USA
Trailer

In this film, a woman tries to get her husband back after he dies from the Black Plague in medieval England. [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] I believe what happens is that in her grief, she mistakenly imagines that her husband is still alive, and digs him up. I think it was intentional that for much of the film, the viewer might reasonably assume that the husband is actually a zombie. This was well done, but I didn't really feel engaged by it.

(In a bizarre coincidence, I was looking the the screenwriter's web page and found that her company produced another short film titled "Christmas Crackers" co-starring my brother-in-law, who's an actor up in Vancouver, B.C. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can watch it anywhere online.)

Driven

Director: Johannes Bachmann
Screenwriter: Johannes Bachmann
Length: 09:15 minutes
Category: Suspense/Thriller (listed); Sci-fi/Thriller (my categorization)
Country: USA
Trailer

A woman driving alone at night through dark woods hits something and gets out to find out what it was. When a Hummer approaches the scene, she drives away in terror. [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD] Ultimately, we see that this is a time loop of some kind; the woman has hit herself, and it keeps happening over and over. I felt that the look of this piece was very polished, but it was another film that didn't engage me quite as much as I would have liked. I also felt like it was longer than necessary to make the point.

The Clock Makers Dream

Director: Cashell Horgan
Screenwriter: Cashell Horgan
Length: 12:03 minutes
Category: Sci-fi (listed); Sci-fi/Fantasy (my categorization)
Country: Ireland
Trailer

Last but not least, this was a visually delightful film about a clockmaker who keeps his entire town running, but who loses his desire to do so upon the death of his wife. He tries to build a replacement for her, but ultimately realizes he's been taking the wrong approach.

It's not quite accurate to say that this film was Burton-esque because it had its own unique look, but it inspired a similar sense of strange wonder. The town is populated by creatures with human bodies and animal heads, which looked to be large masks. The clockmaker himself wears a mask of a gray, immobile face with a pointed nose and beard. My favorite was the girl with the giraffe head, whose purpose seemed only to be skipping merrily through the town's streets. There were also some animated sequences.

Although the story itself didn't entirely make sense to me, this was a pure delight to watch. I also realized I knew the narrator's voice, and saw during the credits, which included headshots of the actors, that it was Jared Harris, who played Moriarty opposite Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes. He was a good choice for this.

[This is anal retentive of me, but it really bothers me that the film's title is missing an apostrophe.]


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My next post will be on Sunday's "Sci-Fi #2 Shorts" -- stay tuned!

Click here to see all of my other reviews of Worldfest-Houston short film screenings from this and previous years.

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