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.
Liturgy of Anti-tank Obstacles
This deceptively simple documentary explores the nature of creation by juxtaposing the work of Ukrainian sculptors who’ve turned their hands to the war effort.
Bachelorette Party
The celebration of a forthcoming marriage is depicted with poignancy and subtlety in Lola Cambourieu and Yann Berlier’s intimate short.
The Trees
The nature of loss both personal and planetary become intertwined in Ramzi Bashour’s mordantly comic drama about a man returning home after his father’s death.
Catcave Hysteria
The women’s toilet in a nightclub becomes the site of miniature disasters and minor catastrophes in Angelika Abramovitch’s multi-stranded and surprisingly affecting short.
Strasbourg 1518
Jonathan Glazer’s lockdown short embraces the urge to dance, re-framing a 16th century madness into an infectious ode to perseverance in the pandemic era.
The Night
Tsai Ming-liang is a master of the meditative short and he’s on exemplary form again with this nocturnal moment of rest in a restless Hong Kong.
Sideral
Brazil’s first manned rocket launch provides a catalyst for transformation and a leftfield opportunity for escape in Carlos Segundo’s bittersweet and dryly absurdist short.
Ice Merchants
A father and son make daily parachute jumps from their cliffside home to sell ice in João Gonzalez’s gripping and poignant animation.
Night Light
A teenager cares for her younger siblings in this delicate portrait of familial love and the desire to hold on to a semblance of childhood.
Persona
A young woman wrestles with the duality of her private self and her public persona in this brief but highly effective South Korean animation.
Tsutsue
Two boys struggle with the loss of their older brother in this liminal and haunting Ghanian drama from director Amartei Armar.
The Spiral
María Silvia Esteve’s new short is a bombastic and overwhelming voyage of colour and sound that conveys the psychological sensation of spiraling hypochondria.
Liquid Bread
An offbeat comedy about family dysfunction ultimately becomes a touching examination of how we deal with scars left on us by our histories.
The Pass
Pepi Ginsberg’s riveting drama tackles the combustible nature of repressed sexuality when a spot of wild swimming takes an unexpectedly dangerous turn.
On Xerxes’ Throne
The outlawing of physical contact creates a cauldron of unexpressed sensuality for the burnished and browbeaten shipyard workers of Evi Kalogiropoulou’s eerie dystopian short.
Will You Look At Me
Shuli Huang’s intensely personal and moving diary film is like a heart-wrenching exploration of – and possibly coda to – his relationship with his mother.
Amo
Emmanuel Gras’ aesthetically minded short is an abstract vision that blends planetary movement and physical intimacy, playfully meditating on where exactly we come from.
When There Is No More Music To Write, and other Roman Stories
Éric Baudelaire riffs on the music and musical sensibility of Alvin Curran in this absorbing archival documentary about the revolutionary fervour of mid-century Rome.
Congress of Idling Persons
In this collaborative rumination on the nature and limits of political protest, Bassem Saad weaves together performance, found footage, and on-screen text with playful results.
Mangrove School
Filipa César and Sónia Vaz Borges explore the decolonising power of education in this tale of rebellious scholarship in the tangle of Guinea-Bissau’s mangrove swamps.