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.
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.
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.