Short films ’06NIGHT TOGETHER | NYC DILEMMA | UNENDANGERED | WORLD'S WORST ARCHITECTURE
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last update 13.Oct.06
See also: DESTRICTED | EROS | SHADOWS FILM FESTIVAL
R E V I E W S B Y R I C H C L I N E
two shorts from the BFI's 20th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in April 2006,plus three more by one of the filmmakers...
Dubowsky stars in and provides an energetic, comical score for this day-in-the life of a guy who clearly doesn't want to get up in the morning, then goes through his rather odd schedule in a kind of dull panic. Atmospheric and funny, and full of hilarious touches, from the boot-licking incident to his wannabe-muscleman trip to the gym. It's a little silly but also hugely enjoyable, especially as it gets more and more surreal. Fabulous.
with Jack Curtis Dubowsky, Elizabeth Elson
05/US 5min
Black and white clips of soulless modern buildings with a jaunty score, then voices, two guys (Strang and Groves) describing details of how they met, the attraction and their relationship - often referring to the places they were at the time. On screen we see city views and random clips of people going about daily life, plus occasional glimpses of the guys. With the grainy footage, it looks like a historical film, but the voiceovers combine to give it an evocative sense of urban life and the difficulties and fundamental problems with modern relationships. Ultimately, it's eerie and a little sad. But very true.
with Ian Strang, Cameron Groves, Rob Quance, Bettina Klug, Kent Jensen
05/Canada 8min
Accompanied by lurid music, a garish title slide is followed by striking images that play out like some sort of trashy James Bond trailer, with on-screen phrases like "You have been selected" and "Kill it" accompanying a blonde with a gun, race cars and exotic foreign locales, all of whick look like they were clipped from 1960s magazines. But eventually a hilarious spy story emerges - our blonde agent falls for the guy she's supposed to shoot, and the earth shakes: "Hot!" What's a girl to do? Simply wonderful.
06/Canada 4min
It opens with the flickering Flamingo Hotel sign in Las Vegas. Accompanying images of the neon and lights of the Strip, Groves describes how he met a retired casino worker who told him all about her her life and work. It's a gentle, intriguing story that spans about 45 years of Vegas' history, including the transition from family-style mafia rule to souless corporate greed. And she also talks about her son and grandson, and discusses tragedy with a kind of "that's life" ethos. It's rather slight, but still effective.
narr Cameron Groves
05/Canada 5min
Dean (Barry) approaches a stranger, Carson (Groves), in the street and asks him if he can stay over - but Cameron is a bit worried. He's not gay, and doesn't know what Dean wants. But he gives in, offers him a room, food, drink, a shower. What's he going to ask for next? There's an intriguing sense of expectation - we never have a clue where it's going. And it's very well filmed and acted in a natural, insinuating way, with all kinds of hints about what's really going on with these guys. A clever and slightly elusive examination of trust.
with Cameron Groves, Michael Barry
06/Canada 8min
R E V I E W S B Y R I C H C L I N E
shorts from the BFI's 50th London Film Festival in Oct-Nov 2006...
A slice of life from the Latino community in Los Angeles, this gentle film follows a young couple (Carreno and Behrens) trying to make life better for their 8-year-old son Alejandro (Galvan). They take him out shopping, to music lessons and picking blackberries along the river. But the financial pressures are getting to them. Mom is working a grim dishwashing job, while Dad's mariachi band is struggling to find work. This is a beautifully shot film, acted, photographed and scored like a full-budget feature. It's also sensitive, subtle and ultimately surprisingly haunting.
with Jose Galvan, David Carreno, Yeniffer Behrens, Jesus Perez, Richard Azurdia, Humberto Meza
05/US 17m
Disorienting and a little gimmicky, this film follows low-life London teen Robert (Webb) as he enters a pig sty of a flat and tells his twitchy friend (Bahdon) a story about a day he spent with another friend, Marlon (Lawson), trying to find hash. At one point Robert gets beaten senseless by a gang of girls, but they eventually find the drugs and all seems well until Robert realises he's been injured in the brawl. At this point reality folds in on him. Filmmaker Lawrence catches the annoying street attitudes of aggressively violent London youth--school kids who strut, swear and spit. And the tone is intriguing: a collage of offbeat scenes and imagery, jarringly edited with vivid sounds. By the time the story comes into focus, though, it feels obvious and maybe a little preachy.
with Bronson Webb, Michael Lawson, Abdi Bahdon, Kaleem Aftab, Ali-Reza Baxrcar, Laetitia Lawrence
06/UK 10m
This beautifully shot, free-form short centres on three young teens--a twin brother and sister (Garvie and Mizrahi) and the sister's friend (Barreto)--as they play and torture each other on a summer day. There's no real plot, and no sense of time either, as we watch them swim, cycle, engage in water fights and exchange seemingly random lines of dialog (which the brother records on a tape machine and keeps replaying). Eventually it drifts into Lynchian territory with freaky imagery and torturous interrelationships. It's like a moody, atmospheric ode to the end of childhood and the beginning of the stresses of puberty. Or something.
with Lucía Mizrahi, Mara Barreto, Agustín Garvíe
05/Argentina 11m
See also: SHADOWS FILM FESTIVAL
© 2006 by Rich Cline, Shadows
on the Wall