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.
Make or Break
This atmospheric animated documentary uses collage and fleeting rotoscoped drawings to convey the brutality and dislocating effect of state care in the GDR.
On Taphonomy
The life and work of German palaeontologist Johannes Weigelt is itself placed under the microscope in this inventive and unexpectedly charged miniature portrait.
Raw
The atmosphere is thick in this humid Andalusian-set drama in which a teenage boy encounters the first pangs of his burgeoning homosexuality.
The Sound of Dreaming
Lucid dreaming and entangled destinies give an otherworldly aspect to Kalani Gacon’s intoxicating and bittersweet tale of romantic longing in Kathmandu.
Radio Silence
A silly joke on a quiet weekend away becomes a painful indicator of impending doom in this low-key Norwegian break-up drama.
Still Is
This ambiguous single-take drama poignantly depicts a mundane morning in a family home, subtly exploring grief and the ways we hold on and move on.
Brasier
An 11-year-old girl has a sexual awakening when she joins an older girls’ football team, but she struggles to understand and control taboo desires.
Look at Me
Javier Bardem and Chris Rock star in this febrile melodrama, directed by Sally Potter, about an explosive moment in a relationship.
Christopher at Sea
Inspired by Schubert’s song cycle Die schone Mullerin, Christopher at Sea is a dizzying animated odyssey into solitude and obsessive, unrequited desire.
My Girl Friend
A harmless ruse to enable some teenage fumbling upsets the equilibrium of a relationship in Kawthar Younis’ pointed chamber piece.
Tria
A family is forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice in this stomach-churning dystopian tragedy about the chilling effects of social control.
Snow in September
A teenage boy’s worldview is unsettled by a confusing encounter with an older woman in this riveting Mongolian coming-of-age drama.
August Sky
This deft and low-key drama uses fires raging in the Amazon to explore how a young woman is drawn to religion in search of some form of stability.
North Pole
A teenage girl’s sense of isolation is writ large across the screen in this frosty Macedonian coming-of-age short that is warmed by a compelling lead performance.
The Baldwin Archives
A 1963 BBC interview with James Baldwin, and conducted by Peter Duval Smith, is recreated in this polished and energising narrative short.
5pm Seaside
Two men share in intimate and intense moment on a deserted shoreline in this short drama about violence, emancipation, and the fine lines between the two.
The Water Murmurs
Story Chen’s Palme D’Or-winning short is a mesmerising journey through memory and melancholia as a woman takes a farewell tour of her hometown.
Ribs
Farah Hasanbegovic uses a beautifully simple hand-drawn animation style to bring to life this meditation on physical limitations and finding acceptance in our own bodies.
That’s How The Summer Ended
Atmosphere is everything in this ambiguous, slightly absurd short that leaves a great deal left unsaid, but perfects a lingering sense of melancholy.
Babajanja
This personal essay film inflected with horror movie motifs delves into childhood notions of bogeymen and the sobering truth behind them.