Saw these yesterday, and would be interested in hearing what others have to say about them.
I’m not really a student of film - I mostly go to movies to be entertained. Of the 5 shorts, 4 of them were quite disturbing. I’m curious about how short films like these get made. I imagine they are not money-makers, so I am interested in the motivation for the makers to make these films. And I wonder about the nomination process. Really, there wasn’t a SINGLE happy film worth nomination?
I’m not criticizing the films per se. They were generally well made. And they certainly had an impact on my wife and me. :eek: I can’t imagine how they got such performances from the young actors. And I guess my choice should have been to research them more before and decide not to see them. Just hoping that folk more familiar with film than I might help me appreciate what I saw.
Every year I see all the shorts: live action, animated, and documentary. There are movie theaters reasonably close to me that do each of these. I’ve seen the live action and animated ones and expect to see the documentaries these weekend. Yeah, the live action ones are kind of depressing this year. Here’s the nomination and voting processes:
They aren’t always this depressing. In any case, you have to somehow compress a story into a short time, and a shocking, depressing story can be told quickly sometimes. You shouldn’t take this year’s films as being typical of most years. Sometimes it’s just a matter of luck that similar themes come up among most of the films in one year.
I think I saw last year’s - or the year before. I recall one was about a little deaf girl whose parents were opposed to her learning sign language. After watching those, I recall having a similar reaction: “Who makes these films and why?” I guess I ought to make more effort to answer that question - or quit asking! :o
I’d imagine there is considerable territory between “gloriously happy” and at least 4/5 of what I saw yesterday…
Thanks for the nomination criteria. Interesting - commercial release OR awards at competitive or student festivals. The Silent Child made sense to me, as it was obvious advocacy. And I understand student exercises. And the first film last night - Mother - was interesting with the extended takes in the enclosed space. But some of the others really had me questioning.
The “1939 Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden, NYC” short got some media attention this year because Fox declined to run a commercial for it, not wanting to upset their Nazi viewers.
Today my wife and I were at an event w/ my sister, who saw them with us last Wed. We all agreed how much our mood had been worsened by having sat thru such unpleasantness. 3 days later, the ugliness is still with us. After the 3d, I had suggested that we leave, but we all kept thinking the NEXT one would be better. The 4th (2 10-yr old boys kidnap, torture, and kill a 2 yr old) was (in our opinion) the ugliest. After that, the 5th (white supremacists w/ young child, stomp a black man…) was ugly, but almost cartoonish in its predictability.
Yeah, they made an impact. But in our opinions, the world has enough unpleasantness that we have no desire to voluntary seek out more of this sort. Gonna be a lot more careful about researching future offerings.
Incidentally, short films often get made as “calling cards”. In other words, the filmmakers want to show investors that they can make impressive short films with a smal amount of money. They get money somehow to make these short films and then show them to investors. They tell investors that since they can make powerful short films with limited amounts of money, it’s worthwhile for the investors to give them a large sum of money to make a longer film.
I saw the live action and animated short films today and I have to agree about how disturbing the live-action films were (except for Marguerite). They were all well-done, but hard to watch.
I asked our son, who is really into film, if he is going to the screening at the theater near his college. He said he’s heard that this year’s crop of shorts isn’t very good. Dark doesn’t bother him, so that’s probably not the reason he isn’t interested.
Can we mention the animated films? Because I can’t see why Bao wasn’t considered racist and insulting. plus, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to think of a mother that eats her own dumpling-son.
I thought most of the animated films were rather simplistic.
Girl wants to be astronaut, has supportive father. If only it were that easy.
Kid gets shuttled between separated parents. And the point was…? Installing microwave ovens?
Life can be metaphorically shown as walking along a tightrope. But if there is an afterlife, then the rope doesn’t actually run out, now does it? And what did the bird represent?
The animation in Tweet Tweet was the most realistic I’ve ever seen. Some of the shots looked like actual items. Very well done.
I loved the style of Late Afternoon. A beautiful watercolor journey through memories of the past.
I saw them yesterday at the invitation of a friend, and we were both very disturbed by four of the films. One small child at risk of violence due to possible neglect (or something, we don’t know). One child doing violence unintentionally (as part of play). Two children doing violence for no discernible reason other than the lack of any brakes on their impulses (the last fact of this re-recreation of real events was the most disturbing to me). One child being taught violence and, in heavy-handed irony, committing some violence himself. All four of these boys were around 10 years old; the one in danger was younger, about 6.
I really disliked the film that won, it seemed very stereotyped and predictable, except for the surprise at the end, and with a very heavy-handed message. I wouldn’t have voted for it if I had been voting. Then it occurred to me to wonder which one I would have voted for. The first one built up beautifully and then just stopped; to me it just felt incomplete. The second one was a little too pat. The third one was also a message film, as much about old age as about sexuality, but I thought it was well done. The fourth one, about the two boys, had amazing acting from the boy actors, and was harrowing to sit through, but I thought it was longer than it needed to be, I think editing could have tightened it up. So I guess I would have voted by default for the gentle and sweet one, it told a full story in a short frame and was well cast, acted, and directed.
By the way, the second film, about the two boys playing, was called “Fauve” which I looked up, and it seems to be a color (tan or tawny) or a wildcat. Any francophone folks care to discuss which meaning (or both) might have been intended? It’s from Canada, presumably Quebec, if that matters.