Expo is a deeply moving, very emotional short science fiction film directed by Joe Sill. Boasting some beautifully shot visuals as it follows a working mother, alone on a dangerous industrial Lunar base, as she gets a message from home, with the worst news any parent can receive, that her seriously ill child has lost her fight against her illness. The huge loss is amplifies by her vast isolation, alone on the Moon, the Earth, home, her now deceased child, all a vast distance away, hanging in the sky over her stark Lunar workplace. Actress Daniela Flynn gives a powerful performance, conveying the loss and emotion even through her protective spacesuit helmet, to give this well-shot short a huge emotional punch:
Wolfsong is a very sad and yet beautiful and moving short animated film by Toniko Pantoja: a wolf mother tries to regain her lost cub, now dead and stuffed as the trophy of an uncaring hunter, so she can sing the cub to sleep, but alas the hunter follows her determined not to lose his prize…
Cracking short film by Nick Ryan, The German sees a the pilot of an RAF Spitfire locked in a duel with a Luftwaffe ME 109 during the Battle of Britain. Determined to claim the Nazi pilot who shot down his friend the Spitfire pilot pursues the fleeing Messerschmit, the two exchanging fire, evading, chasing, diving through clouds, to a surprising conclusion:
Having a look around Vimeo I spotted another short ten minute film by Nick, A Lonely Sky, a gripping short movie about the attempts to break the sound barrier in the 1940s, complete with an appearance by Keir Dullea of 2001 fame, well worth a watch:
A cracking find online – this short work by Clement Bolla, Fx Goby and Matthieu Landour pays great homage to those classic creature features so beloved of 1950s Sci-Fi, as a young man working night security in a film studio can’t resist trying on a monster costume to play a practical joke, which snowballs into a series of increasingly out of control situations. I really like the setting, which has a sort of 1950s/60s feel to it that could be Britain or America, it’s undefined and really suits the tale very well:
I found this achingly beautiful pice of short, award-winning animation, Caldera, on Vimeo. A film from Evan Viera and friends, it is largely a homage to his father, who had to deal with images and delusions due to a mental disorder. It follows a young woman who experiences some quite remarkable visual worlds due to her own mental health issues, worlds that society decides she must control and curb with medication, bringing her back to the drab constrictions of what people rather foolishly call reality (as if they had any real idea what that actually was), but the realms in her imagination are too vibrant to be contained. The film reminds me very much of one of my favourite literary works of all time, Don Quixote, and how sometimes we are happier with our delusions; perhaps if more questioned the nature of imagination and reality and our individual natures rather than the bland demand for all to conform we’d have a happier society. There is some gloriously beautiful visual imagery in this animation, especially a scene where she leaps into a nocturnal, glowing sea, like falling into stars, or swimming with a great sea turtle. Beautiful work.
Overview is a stunning short film from the Planetary Collective, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the famous “Blue Marble” photograph (taken by Apollo 17, see above) by talking with astronauts about the ‘overview effect’ – the change in perspective many of them experience when they get to do something that all the thousands of years of humans before the 1960s could never do: see the world from space. I’ve been a space geek since I was a very young boy, happy with a NASA costume and toy helmet, box for a ‘spaceship’ and imagination, and I’ve heard a number of astronauts and cosmonauts talk about this experience, about how viewing the world from above the clouds changes their perspective forever on how astonishing our world is, how remarkably beautiful yet fragile, how everything and everyone is interconnected… The imagery is beautiful…
TiM is a wonderful short animated film from Ken Turner, about a little boy who is different and relies on his own imagination to get him through, losing himself in drawing, making his own films and watching movies. But most of all he wants, when he grows up, to be Tim Burton. A lovely little homage to being different and how we all find little pieces of wonder that, even if most others don’t understand, mean the world to us and make life more magical.
Here’s a wonderfully creepy and nicely made short fairytale horror from Ben Tillett and Jake Cuddihy at the BloodyCuts site, just the thing for Halloween: the Suckablood, who is summoned to punish naughty children when they refuse to stop sucking their thumbs…
Adrien is a piano prodigy, but when he fails to win the music prize he worked so hard for his life falls apart and he retreats into work as a piano tuner, but then he creates a pretend persona as a blind man, finding his clients are more trusting and kinder and more intimate with him when they believe he is blind. And then on one visit he sees something he shouldn’t, and the question is does his client think a blind man may stumble on their secret or not? Very stylish short French film, with English subtitles:
I was off at my second home, the Filmhouse this afternoon, to catch some of the annual French Film Festival. I was taking in some short films today; as usual with a collection of shorts, be it movies, prose stories or whatever, it’s a mixed bag, some good, some so-so, some quite interesting, some that seemed meandering and had no point, others that were nice little examples of a brief but well contained tale or experience (because not all of them were narratives). I think my favourites were an old one from the 70s (judging by the film stock and the vehicles. I later found it was actually made in 76), C’était un rendez-vous , which was simply a high speed drive through the streets of Paris as dawn was breaking, coming up the the Place d’Etoile, round the Arc du Triomphe, down the Champs Elysee, Place de la Concord, roar along the Rive Droit alongside the Ports de Lyons gate of the Louvre then turn and through the Louvre (no IM Pei glass pyramid visible back when this was filmed) and eventually, judging by the increasing slops heading into the Montmartre region and stopping near Sacre Couer at the end (I was quite pleased I remembered my Parisian geography and could follow where he was going for the most part). Camera position stays fixed all the way through and the car never stops (alarmingly at some points!), very simple but really cool. Just found what looks like the whole thing on YouTube, so have a look:
I was also drawn to the short films session because they were showing the first short animated work by Sylvain Chomet, creator of two of my favourite animated features, Belleville Rendezvous and The Illusionist. The Old Lady and the Pigeons is a bit rougher than his later films, but still interesting and you can see some of his styles and approaches (the Ralph Steadman influence is visible even here). Fun to see. Again it seems to be available online, so here you go:
Came out the Filmhouse to find night had fallen and the earlier drizzle had turned to much heavier rain, so decided to catch a bus rather than walk home, while I was waiting by the stop outside the Usher Hall I had the urge to take a pic as the area has only recently been opened up again after some construction work revamping it, so the space in front of it is now opened up, with illuminated signs for upcoming events. With the lights reflecting off the wet streets I felt like getting a shot, but lacking the tripod I had to improvise, bracing the camera against a nearby post, so it isn’t quite as sharp as I’d like, but you take what you can get. Colour didn’t work well for it, but black and white seemed to suit it much better:
and while I was at it I took a quick one of the Usher Hall with it’s brand new modern extension, again with the lights reflecting on the wet paving stones:
