Fantasy of Companionship between Human and Inanimate - REVIE

Fantasy of Companionship between Human and Inanimate is a 14-minute animated short film directed by Susan Lim, Samudra Kajal Saikia, and Christina Teenz Tan.

The short film tells the story of Alan, a baby lion living in the jungle whose soul leaves its body after being shot by a hunter and enters an inanimate plush lion in a toy factory in Tanzania. Soon after that, the plush gets bought by a little girl in California, Christine, as they start their journey of companionship.

The story is a veiled critique of our modern society. Not only does the girl resort to asking a scientist friend to give life to her inanimate furry friend in order to feel less alone when sent off to college, but we can also see a reference to a toy factory in Tanzania, manufacturing tons of toys and shipping them across the world.

There is a cyclic paradox in this story, the cub’s soul left him when he dies, only to enter an unanimated plush toy, which then becomes animated by the means of AI.

We’ve seen the work of the trio of directors before, and their last work features pieces from their previous music videos all stitched together to form a longer and more intricate story. As their previous work, this short film is light, fun, and very enjoyable, with well-composed and well-recorded music. 

A special mention goes to the narrator, whose soothing and warm voice completes the fairy tale element of this story.

A lighthearted animation short film that exposes some of our society’s deepest and more relevant issues.

Like.Share.Repost, directed by Stanislav Shelestov, opens with a man, Seryoga, looking for a pair of scissors, then getting into the bathroom and bursting into cheering. He later summons his good friend Andrey and shows him his discovery: pills that make him immune to physical pain.

The short film soon becomes a gruesome contest of who can hurt himself the most, all without feeling any pain at all. And with the help of their skeptical friend Lena, they start a youtube channel for their absurd videos.

The concept is simple and fun, the actors are hysterical and the short is well directed.

The idea of making a satire on social media has been done over and over again, but the grotesque take that this film delivers is original and creative. 

The editing is fast-paced, the cinematography is good, and the addition of the broken limbs brings realism and humor to the production.

A noir comedy that pushes the limits of what people could do for a bunch of likes on social medi

The Last Shogun of North Philly is a 55-page action script written by Kevin Overton and set in a modern Philadelphia where Shoguns are ruling the city. Each part of the city has its own Shogun to protect them, and they are all led by a head Shogun.

The head Shogun, Mack Steel, knows he’s ready for retirement and would like to hand over his title to his son, who unfortunately doesn’t want anything to do with martial arts, but is passionate about fashion design. The other Shoguns are therefore ready to fight for the soon-to-be-vacant position.

It’s peculiar how the Head Shogun addresses his martial art as Kung Fu — the Chinese martial art — instead of referring to the Japanese one. In addition to that, there is no incorporation of the authentic Japanese traditions inherited from Japanese Shoguns into this script. Perhaps this is an indication that most elements of the original military dictators got lost during the assimilation of the traditions by the people of Philadelphia.

The script is fun to read, the fight scenes are easy to follow and engaging. The costumes seem to be a crucial part of this film, as each Shogun has his specific style.

The dialogues within the Steel family are well written. However, they always seem to stay on a superficial level. Mack’s 23-year-old son Rodney doesn’t seem to be suffering from his father’s extreme bullying. Mack’s wife Belle, a hard worker who at first seems to be very protective of her own son, accepts gladly when Mack deprives his son of his most precious thing, the only thing that will allow him to leave the city and make a life for himself, away from the violence of Shoguns.

The narrative is a bit bumpy, the obstacles created in the script don’t get solved and the writer is leaving an open ending for a possible sequel.

Overall a good and unusual script, where the modern Western world mix with antique Eastern traditions to create a tiny world of action, violence, and style.

DEAD DREAMS FALLING is a 12-minute music video directed by Craig Murray, that analyzes one of the closest human relationship that ever existed: the physical relationship between two twins.

The video opens with candid footage of a pregnant woman giving birth to twin babies and then holding them in her arms.

Right after that, two accidents take place at the same time: one of the two twins, the guy, falls from his motorcycle, while the other twin, the girl, gets pulled by an invisible force and falls over a bed, emulating her twin’s accident.

The montage of the two twins as young kids, happily chasing each other in a sunny field, and the man in the ambulance fighting for his life is extremely powerful and sad. 

In addition to these shots, we see a parallel dimension where the two twins are both dead and surrounded by people dancing, who seem to be almost worshipping the two — the twins are dead, but we almost feel relieved to see them together, creating an almost spiritual bond.

The images are beautiful and the cinematography is very suggestive. The music is repetitive and troubling and suits the film perfectly.

There is great production value in this moving and powerful narrative music video, the writing is beautiful, which really makes us want to see more about the life of the two main characters.

Minneapolis is a 3-minute political film by David Anderson. The short shoes the street of Minneapolis, moments before the jury decides the verdict on Chauvin’s trial, possibly deciding the fate of the United States, in terms of police accountability.

In this film, shots of the streets of Minneapolis are alternating with actual footage of the news broadcasting live from the front of the courthouse, ringed by razor wire and guarded by soldiers. Outside of the courthouse protestors are standing, waiting for the verdict.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged white man is walking around in a city that looks almost frozen, capturing its beauty and taking advantage of its almost complete emptiness. The man is looking, remembering, and grasping the last views of Minneapolis before everything possibly changes.

The city of Minneapolis is very well represented, as we can feel the nostalgia of the man thinking about what would happen to the city in case Chauvin is acquitted. 

But the connection with the black community is lacking. What would in fact be those consequences, for a middle-aged white man in case Chauvin is found not guilty? For this reason, those nice pensive and reflective shots of the city are left with very little context. It’s difficult for the audience to make a connection between Chauvin’s trial and the main character — except for both sharing the same city.

The best achievement of this film is the sense of expectation that it creates. Time is suspended. Everything is still, which, shot with a handheld camera, creates a nice contrast in the image.

A well-edited film that definitely makes us reflect on a piece of history so crucial for the USA and for the world.

A compelling film about the relationship with others and with ourselves. Girl on the Ledge is a feature film by Paul Arthur Rothman that revolves around finding a balance between life and art.

Ana’s path is well paved from a very young age: married young to an older and successful photographer, she and her husband work together as fashion photographers in New York. But things are about to change. 

Ana looks restless, she seems unsatisfied with her life. She realizes the path she put herself in is leading nowhere and needs to disrupt her whole world in order to find her true soul and be finally happy. But even then, she can’t seem to find the thing that can, in fact, make her happy.

A subway ride is her revealing moment, as she discovers the power of street photography. It’s almost as if Ana, lacking a story of her own, starts stealing other people’s stories by photographing them — “you’re stealing my soul!” yells a homeless man to Ana at the beginning of the film — thus creating a life that is somewhat meaningful to her. 

And her upsetting search will go on for the rest of the film, leading her to a state of extreme misery, loneliness and desolation.

This film doesn’t follow a classical structure. It starts at the peak of Ana’s life — a nice house, a loving husband and a successful career — and soon after that her life spirals downwards, without any positive moments in which the audience can recover and breathe. The climax of the film happens 40 minutes in, when Ana’s true annihilation is triggered by an abuse and the loss of her father. And from that moment on, the film almost turns into a frightening and nightmarish halloween parade, where everyone is wearing a mask and seems to be living in a different world as Ana.

The images of young Ana, at the beginning and at the end of the film reveal an apprehension that was present in her eyes at an early age.

It’s very hard to write and direct a film that treats physical and mental illnesses, as well as death, whilst being able to avoid creating something that’s just over-the-top dramatic and too obvious. Here, most things are implied: a room filled with newspapers on the floor and curtains closed show a depression taking over; Ana’s body slowly getting thinner and paler suggest her disease; Ana spinning around in the middle of a parade is showing her mental health spiraling uncontrollably.

Rothmans direction is very elegant, and the writing is very well executed, leaving a lot of room for the actors to experiment and live.

It’s sad to think that the director, Paul Arthur Rothman, passed away before being able to see the beautiful result of his work. His son sure did whatever he could to take the best out of this film.

A film that’s well worth seeing!

For I Am Dead is an 18-minute short film directed by Patricia Delso Lucas, who also produced it with Al Nazemian. In this film, set in the late 1800s, Al Nazemian stars as Oscar, a middle-aged wealthy man living a decadent life, alongside Riggsby Lane, who plays his young and handsome gardener Jude.

The short opens with Oscar and two courtesans engaged in a tumultuous dance that ends with the three indulging in wine and opiate. But as soon as young Jude enters the room, Oscar is immediately captivated by his innocent gaze.

The film gets intriguing when Oscar asks Jude to join him for a glass of wine inside the palace, and through a mix of intimidation and seduction, he is able to reveal his true feelings to him. Nonetheless, his plan rapidly turns against him as Oscar, right after tasting the wine, starts falling into a vortex of physical and emotional devastation.

In this film, Jude embodies temptation. At times angelic, and at times devilish, Jude fluctuates between being his rescuer and his perpetrator.

The linear narration is mixed with segments showing Oscar’s interior conflict. Truth and imagination are subtly mixed to convey a sense of disturbance and dichotomy, highlighted by handheld camera shots, with Oscar’s nightmarish visions alternating with images of reality. Oscar is now left to face his mother — disappointed by a son she doesn’t accept — the courtesans — frustrated by Oscar’s lack of sexual interest for them — and his maid, all four of them standing in the dark, holding candles and inveighing against him.

The acting is intense and profound, and Oscar and Jude are perfectly cast; Nazemian’s troubled and somber face and his light build are in perfect contrast with fresh-faced and strong Riggsby. The sound design — classical music skillfully alternating with overlapped English and French voices — and Dominika Podczaska's beautiful photography really bring the film to the next level.

What Oscar is going through is something many people are still experiencing today: the insurmountable pressure of being the person everyone wants them to be at the cost of losing themselves or living their true self at the cost of losing everything and everyone around them.

So many of these topics are still heavily discussed today: same-sex love, coming out, acceptance and self-acceptance.

Films like these are so important to produce, as they spark a conversation on how, even in our modern days, we are unable to truly accept the ones who are slightly different from what we’ve been taught to consider “acceptable”. Watching this film should teach us that the way we treat others, especially the ones belonging to marginalized groups, can create wounds that result in a vicious circle of hate and self-destruction.

An important work that is more relevant now than ever.

When a group of troublemakers bump into a man such as Big Hand Nick, you know it will be hard for them to escape their fate!

There are no heroes in this 25-minute long action movie, but only one simple man, Big Hand Nick, who refuses to succumb to oppression, whether it’s by the good or the bad guys.

Stamas Brothers’ unconventional story is pure comedy; the well-edited action shots, no short of spinning kicks, falls and throws, are really entertaining to watch, and the lack of Foley sounds makes the fight scenes look surreal, almost like a parody or a delightful and fascinating dance to the rhythmic and engaging music.

But if Big Hand Nick isn’t the hero nor the villain of the story, who is he? Perhaps he’s just one of us, struggling to find balance between the good and the bad in our lives made of compromise and deception? 

Or maybe the chess metaphor says it all: if life can only move forward, sacrificing the pawns is just an inevitable consequence of living.

Being shot over a span of 20 years, this film is a potpourri of friendship, fun, dedication and martial arts. A shout out to the fighters, who brought something really special to this film!

Without a doubt, It's Always Been You! is an ode to Brooklyn. Andrew McCardle wrote and directed this feature film, in which he shows us all the facets of the New York City borough, with its Italian American residents, the Pokémon-chasing millennials, Prospect Park, the record shops, etc...

It’s nice to see time blending together so harmoniously, the past and the future collapsing in a present made of disconnection, people talking to each other but not listening, and way too many cellular phones.

The only break from reality is the enigmatic appearance of the spirit of Lola Montez – which seems to glue together all the time elements of the film – as well as fast and well-edited montages of flickering lights accompanied by mystical music.

One can’t miss the heavy reference to Spike Lee, with the retro Brooklyn imagery and an ensemble cast, that walks in and out of frame as the camera pans through the streets of Kings County.

And as the opening and the closing scenes reveal a restaurant full of people absorbed in their phones, one is left to wonder: are digital devices the poison of our society?

"If you are depressed, you are living in the past; if you are anxious, you are living in the future; if you are at peace, you are living in the present." 

We can read these beautiful and actual words in one of the montaged slides of HIS TRASFORMATION (THE MEETING), a four-minute length experimental short movie by Catherine Gropper. 

Gropper chooses images of nature, daily life moments, sunsets, sea, kids, objects, and pages of books about translating. 

The soundtrack is beautiful and matches the images, and it only fades out for a few seconds to give space to the sound of some birds, underlining the central theme of the movie, which is indeed the communion with nature. 

Four minutes of relaxing images and calming music underline the importance of connecting with nature and our souls, remembering to live in the here and now philosophy to appreciate the gift of life thoroughly. 

An American football helmet is what Ladarius, the protagonist of the script WIRED by Edward Galloway, is left with after his beloved father Jack passed away in the garden of his home, an afternoon like many others. 

But it's not just an ordinary object that belonged to someone special. It's the channel that links Ladarius to his father; it's his way to connect with his son and to guide him throughout his young life and all the challenges it brings along: high school experiences, friends, love, mother-son relationships, passions, being a champion and a thriving teenager.

After blaming his mother for the death of his father, a period filled with fights with his girlfriend Sarah, and after refusing to keep playing American football, which was jack's passion and in which he was a champion, Ladarius will find his own way to acceptance, guided by his father's voice.

Ladarius will eventually find his way to say goodbye to his father and embrace a life without him.

The plot created by Galloway is enjoyable since the first act. It has a good pace, nicely developed characters, and an organized structure. It delivers a good message that can be appreciated by a wide variety of audiences, especially young adults.

Dialogues are realistic and accurate to life, nothing cheesy, nothing more than the necessary, therefore appreciable.

WIRED is overall a good script that could absolutely be worth production. 

Johanne Chagnon's beautiful vision lands at the Milan Gold Award Festival with a 14 - minute short movie called UNHEARTH THE LANDSCAPE.

As the title suggests, this experimental movie plays with creation and disintegration, where the human body and the landscape that surrounds and embraces it become one.

Decay alternates with birth. And the process goes on through a constant overlap of images.

Her body appears and disappears (or better arises and dies) within the ground, the materials, the nature.

The images and the sequences remind us of the moon's surface and its first interaction with the human body. It looks like a virgin space and Chagnon a newborn that has to test the area, the distance, in a respectful relationship and not in a violent takeover act.

The overlap keeps going until the human body takes the sea in the last act of communion with nature and slowly disappears within it, surrounded by silence and a fast-forwarded dance of waves.

Many meanings are hidden behind this short movie, which shows Chagnon's deep love for experimental works. 

But the relationship between human beings and nature is explicit, and it makes the film very up-to-date with one of the most sensitive subjects of our current time. 

We had the chance to read the script CASCADIA by Tim Millette, and we are glad we did.

Theme and subject are very well defined, and that is what usually makes a script a great one.

The structure is strong and tidy, showing a good knowledge of screenwriting tools. Characters have strong personality and they are well placed in the story and in the relationships between each other.

Millette also paid great attention to the dialogues, that are never obvious.

The pace is good, and it helps the reader be focused throughout the entire script. The themes of love, science, and nature, combine in this script and the atmospheres coming straight from the nineties, which is when the story takes place, make it original and deliver a touch of mystery that is worth of some of the best movies shot in the 90s.

Last but not least, the structure respects completely the rules of screenwriting but at the same time, actions and transitions are written in a “novel” style form,  with great attention paid to details. This makes the reading experience as pleasant as reading a book, which is the highest goal that every screenwriter should aim to.

CLIMB is a 52 minutes long documentary by Neil Myers that tells his personal story as a triathlon athlete,  a story of determination and willpower that led him to achieve his goal despite a brutal accident.

Needless to say, an athlete's journey is metaphorically parallel to the hero's journey in fiction. In this case, thanks to an excellent photograph and a voice-over worthy of the best actors (Neil Myers himself), the first three minutes of the first act are already enough to prove it. As a matter of fact, the story heralds suspense and a climax worthy of the best fictional scripts.

The documentary is presented in small chapters: introduction, accident, operation, and post-operation. Then it comes moral and physical effort to return to climbing and the struggle to not fall into the (unfortunately super common) trap of opioids.

Furthermore, to enrich the story, the second protagonist: triathlon. Which is different from other sports. Its beauty recalls the metaphor of life, in which even if you fight alone, in reality, you are not, and your sweat, fatigue, and passion is that of your group, of those that fight on your same side. 

It's a personal story but visually told with a professionalism worthy of the best productions.

A story told with love through sharp images and montage and a neat and clean script.

The title, representative of the athlete's activity but perhaps above all of his metaphorical experience, is a perfect choice.

CLIMB is an excellent product that deserves to be shared. It's always enjoyable to know a story that can be everyone's story.

And it reminds us that after the climb, there will always be a descent.