Affirming our commitment to review the finest of world cinema regardless of length, The Film Verdict’s Short Films column is a unique feature that recognizes the growing influence of shorts on the film industry and the role they play in the careers of young filmmakers in particular. The reviews are curated by London-based critic Ben Nicholson (ben@thefilmverdict.com), whose expert opinions have appeared in Sight & Sound, MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies and Hyperallergic. He has programmed for Sheffield DocFest and the London Short Film Festival and in 2019 founded ALT/KINO, which screens and publishes writing about experimental film. He is the artistic director of the Alpha Film Festival, the first shorts festival in the metaverse.
Rahhala: Hayya ala Hayya
Harrowing memories of domestic abuse are recounted over striking images of the natural world in Rahhala: Hayya ala Hayya, Lujain Jo’s beautiful and brutal reckoning with trauma.
Air Horse One
Lasse Linder’s equine documentary, Air Horse One, is a quiet portrait of a champion thoroughbred – a behind the scenes peek that is meditative though never profound.
happiness
Firat Yucel’s desktop documentary, happiness, is an impressive attempt to convey the helplessness and emotional overwhelm felt in the contemporary, hyper-connected world.
The Sleeping Beauty
Mattie Do’s The Sleeping Beauty is a beguiling fairy tale of accursed love that blends fantasy and horror, born of traditional Laotian folklore.
The Boy with White Skin
Labour and mythology come crashing together in The Boy with White Skin, a disquieting short set in the pitch darkness of a Senegalese gold mine.
Mouse
Paranoia and past trauma come to bear in Mouse, Rosie Barrett’s short small-town drama infused with an impressive, slowly building tension.
perfectly a strangeness
The short experimental documentary ‘perfectly a strangeness’ pairs the mundane with the majestic in an equine odyssey to the stars.
Dammen
A single wide-angle perspective gives an eerily voyeuristic air to the smart, lowkey exercise in building tension – Dammen.
How to Shoot a Ghost
Mortality is on the mind in Charlie Kaufman’s contemplative and illusory short, How to Shoot a Ghost – an enveloping, chimeric memento mori.
Coyotes
Said Zagha’s pulsating neo-noir probes at the dark consequences of being pushed to breaking point in Coyotes, a genre-inflected Palestinian short.
The Orchards
Antoine Chapon repurposes eerie architectural animations in ‘The Orchards,’ a paean to a lost Damascus community that attempts to resist its eradication by a vindictive regime.
Index
Index, the new short film from Radu Muntean is a low-key thriller that transforms tranquil forest bathing into something far more brooding and disquieting.
I Believe the Portrait Saved Me
The documentary vignette ‘I Believe the Portrait Saved Me’ uses a deeply personal story to explore the power of creativity and evoke the teetering knife edge of survival.
Loynes
Baroque farce is the order of the day in Dorian Jespers’ surreal new short, Loynes, that transforms a historical curio into a bizarre courtroom nightmare.
Wish You Were Ear
Mirjana Balogh’s affirming animation, Wish You Were Ear, finds solace in a dystopian future where ending a relationship requires the physical swapping of a body part.
a river holds a perfect memory
Tying together disparate locations in Northern England and Jamaica, Hope Strickland’s evocative boat ride, ‘a river holds a perfect memory,’ explores the interrelations between labour, memory and rivers.
Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths
Ostensibly about the preservation of an ancient language, Eva Giolo’s essay film ‘Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths’ combines linguistics with landscape and myth to captivating effect.
Temo Re
This Marker-esque monochrome photomontage adapts its protagonist’s docufiction memoir into a slyly funny sketch of a struggling actor in contemporary Tbilisi.
Common Pear
Traditional fruit cultivation becomes a source of archival fascination in Common Pear, a sci-fi documentary hybrid set amidst environmental collapse.
Empty Rider
The third work in Lawrence Lek’s trilogy on disobedient driverless cars, Empty Rider explores autonomy and responsibility through a futuristic AI show trial.