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.
Circle
A young girl draws a circle on the ground and people are drawn to stand within its borders in Joung Yumi’s typically mannered and strangely engrossing monochrome animation.
Muna
A teenager navigates the social pressures of school and the expectations of family in Muna, a thoughtful coming-of-age drama about personal desires and dislocated grief.
Stero
Language is an instrument of oppression and a tool to combat it in Tevin Kimathi and Millan Tarus’ charming tale of childhood resistance, Stero.
Workers’ Wings
Ilir Hasanaj’s deeply empathetic documentary ‘Workers’ Wings’, is centred on manual labourers who have suffered workplace injuries, is a tender and intimate marvel.
Daphne was a torso ending in leaves
In the spritely and tactile essayistic ode to a heroine of Greek myth Daphne was a torso ending in leaves, Catriona Gallagher reflects on the legacy of an ancient arboreal transformation.
History Is Written at Night
‘History Is Written at Night’ is an unusual portrait of the blackouts that have plagued Cuba over the past few years and an exquisite exercise in atmosphere.
DUCK
In the 16-minute short DUCK, visual artist Rachel Maclean co-opts the inherent suspicions of cinematic espionage to craft this surreal mash-up about the escalating media paranoia.
14 Paintings
Just over a dozen artworks are observed in situ in 14 Paintings, a patient but cumulatively fascinating cross-section portrait of contemporary China.
Between Delicate and Violent
Sirin Bahar Demirel’s stimulating bricolage short, Between Delicate and Violent, combines archival imagery with animation to examine how pictures tell stories and whether they can be mined for truth.
I Would Like to Rage
Chloe Galibert-Laine’s latest video essay, I Would Like to Rage, reflects on the place of rage online and through this lens explores the blurred lines between authenticity and performativity
An Asian Ghost Story
Mass wig exportation becomes the lens through which the fascinating, spectral doc An Asian Ghost Story explores Hong Kong’s late 20th-century modernisation and position between East and West.
Compound Eyes of Tropical
One of the traditional fables of Sang Kancil, the wily mouse-deer, is brought exquisitely to life in Zhang Xu Zhan’s electrifying, otherworldly animation, Compound Eyes of Tropical
Lumene: Privatisation
In the complex and thought-provoking essay film, Lumene: Privatisation, David Shongo reflects on the commodification of cultural memory and the lasting impacts of insidious colonial impositions.
Zima
The chill is both atmospheric and emotional in Zima, a scratchy, punkish, magical realist animation about life in a quiet, snow-laden fishing village.
Three Windows on South West
An ostensibly simplistic documentary about a flat in Kyiv, Three Windows on South West uses incidental memories to paint a fleeting collective portrait of another time.
We Are the Hollow Men
Rati Oneli’s phlegmatic drama, We Are the Hollow Men, depicts the difficult relationship between an estranged father and son when the latter returns home after his mother’s death.
Pirsas
Angelica Maria Torres Tamayo works through a personal tragedy in Pirsas, a deeply affecting documentary about a family trauma and the prospect of recovery.
Amma ki Katha (My Amma’s Tale)
History, folklore, and contemporary realities intertwine in Amma ki Katha, Nehal Vyas’ essayistic meditation on national aspiration and how stories become enmeshed in state oppression.
Single Light
A young woman must deal with the physical and psychological bruises of a sexual assault in Shaylee Atary’s powerful dramatic short, Single Light.
Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: “Phony Wars”
Godard reaches from beyond with one final film, a coarse and compelling act of montage, an expressive audiovisual treatment for a never-to-be-made made feature, Phony Wars.