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.
All This Death
An elderly man in Beirut wrestles with grief and his own mortality in All This Death, Fadi Syriani’s poignant and accomplished stop-motion animation.
Aicha
A mother goes to extreme and mystical lengths to reconnect with her daughter in Aicha, a disquieting, fragmentary and politically pointed folk horror-inflected short.
32B
A widower becomes aware of his daughter becoming a woman in 32B, Mohamed Tamer’s awkward but touching Cairo-set comedy.
No Land in Sight
A mother anxiously awaits news of her son in the tense short chamber piece, No Land in Sight, about the ways in which we cling on to hope in the dark.
Passport Wedding
Hind Hamed is excellent as a widowed mother trying to give her daughter a start in life in Passport Wedding, Abdallah Al-Ziyadi’s intimate and expressive drama.
The Apple Doesn’t Fall…
China’s one-child policy provides the inspiration for Dean Wei and Shiyu Liu’s The Apple Doesn’t Fall…, a meticulous and theatrical apartment-bound family drama told through expressive dance.
Second Skin
The collaboration between three filmmakers to re-enact sexual assaults suffered by Russian women, Second Skin, is a staggering and imperative act of bearing witness.
Verdigris
Chloe Brenan’s shimmering psychogeographic short, Verdigris, explores the nature of control and freedom in urban design through the impositions and inferences of the Paris metro.
Rotation
A young woman goes through a form of hypnotherapy in Maryna Er Gorbach’s luminous, evocative and deeply moving new short, Rotation.
Last Shot
The sobering drama, ‘Last Shot’, pays homage to journalists killed in Palestine with an affecting tale about displacement and a photographer’s final, tragic image.
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.