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.
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.
Teta (Grandmother)
A mother and her young son’s relationship is pushed to the limit in Teta, an unnerving psychological horror with disquieting, supernatural overtones.
Man Number 4
How we consume images and what it means to be a distant onlooker lie at the heart of Miranda Pennell’s sobering, analytical short, Man Number 4.
The Chant
The stories of three very different women intersect in May Ghouti’s delicate ensemble drama The Chant, which manages to pack a quietly emotional punch.
Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya
Malena Szlam uses in-camera editing to craft Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya, an evocative 16mm exploration of Australia’s vast central eastern ranges and their deep geological time.
Manual for a Divorce
Peter Ghesquiere channels Wes Anderson in Manual for a Divorce, a mannered short comedy about a couple who are separated when their children get a divorce.
At Dawn
An elderly man savours the small things on what might be his final day alive in Antonin Bonnot’s patient and touching short, At Dawn.
Alone Together
A checkpoint stop en route to Tehran leads to a young boy being held for drug possession. A moral quandary ensues in the emotive short, Alone Together.
Nostalgia of a (Still) Alive Heart
Two young children are left to find their own way when their father commits suicide in Diego Gaxiola’s poignant magical realist short, Nostalgia of a (Still) Alive Heart.
Bits
A woman in smalltown Montana has a near miss with a serial killer but becomes obsessed with being his victim the dark, absorbing drama – Bits.
Skin
A young woman confronts her true self in the mirror in this beautifully shot and symbolic evocation of an individual’s transition from female to male in Leo Behrens’ Skin.
Almost Certainly False
Coming of age is tough in Almost Certainly False, a deft exploration of identity and duty in the life of a young Syrian immigrant dreaming of leaving Istanbul for Europe.
Three Keenings
Three Keenings is a darkly comic character portrait depicts an actor presenting a facsimile of grief that is a thin veneer over the real thing waiting to erupt.
Kora
Claudia Varejao’s experimental documentary, Kora, is a soulful glimpse into the lives of female refugees and the power of photographs in connecting diasporas with home.
The Poison Cat
A closed, patriarchal community begins to transform as the cries of a legendary forest beast foreshadow social revolution in the spirited short, The Poison Cat.
The Eggregores Theory
The surrealism of images created by artificial intelligence evokes the unreliability of memory and elusive nature of a dystopian plague in the sci-fi short, ‘The Eggregores Theory’.