A smorgasbord of shorts, introducing eclectic new voices to Seattle’s beloved film festival. This year’s selections have wide-ranging aesthetics, deeply personal stories, and play with the form and function of the short film in invigorating ways. Let’s dive right in!
Acid City (Brave New World)
Abstract rotoscoping showcase wherein the citizens of a city in the middle of the ocean share about their experience of the environment with a “documentary” filmmaking crew. Flush with style and light in substance, pays its aesthetic dues and gets out before the experiment grates on the audience. Trippy and abstract animation tell an ecological story.
As Told By a Corpse
A bold visual experiment from a nonbinary filmmaker telling a nonbinary story. The story is implied here. It seems to be about leaving behind a past identity, what the filmmaker is born into, that no longer fits their identity. Abstraction goes a long way here and the theme and motif of color disruption and fragmentation aides the film in telling in this deeply personal story. What a delight to get to engage with these stories at a festival. It’s what short film packages at festivals are made for, accessible to haunting, personal stories which suit their runtime and format beautifully.
The Baker’s Hotline
Did you know there is a hotline for baking emergencies? It’s a sweet thing that exists. The Baker’s Hotline is a short form documentary wherein folks at the baking hotline field calls from the sort of eccentric and kind people who would ever think to seek out a baking hotline. It’s cute, cozy, and Grandma Core.
Best of Luck
“Ow, ow, ow! Quit ya howlin’ / It wasn’t even that deep of a wound,” goes this short music video, wherein a sadomasochistic android set on self-destruction tries to adapt to the life of a cowboy. It’s in black-and-white, bouncy in its cartoon buoyancy, and a bit of fun as a jangly Western ditty, albeit just a fragment of a concept, but that’s the design. Like a lost radio transmission from Fallout: New Vegas (2010).
Blooky: The Book Who Wanted to Be Read
A book circulates the sections of library until it finds where it belongs. Cute. Sometimes not fitting in just means that you haven’t yet found your place.
A City Fights Back
Hard times in America. Deep-rooted institutional racism has formed a calloused boil over the soul of our country. The good news is, it’s about to pop, and spill its putrid hatred into the gutters of our Recently Regretted Past. Please hold onto hope. We do not say this lightly. Somedays, it’s all you’re gonna have. A City Fights Back shows the grassroots movement of a teacher / national hero who is fighting for the heart and soul of Los Angeles. This is what America is to me.
Dick’s-A-Thon
On a solo trek through the Cascades, a young man never returned home, so his friend group organized an annual run in his honor, where they’d marathon between all five Dick’s Drive-In locations in the Greater Seattle Area, eating burgers, and trotting some 26 miles in the name of a good cause. Seattlites caught wind of the greasy gastronomical sprint, and year-on-year, it’s grown in popularity. There’s nothing better than a good Dick’s burger, except good people.
Hyena
Expressionism rendered through striking black-and-white photography. Altay Ulan Yang creates a whole lived-in universe about art school rejects acting out in a stunningly photographed castle. Exceptional shot choices and aesthetics lift Hyena above the pack, capturing the artist as both the perpetuator and victim of violence. Channeling German Expressionism is a bold choice and pays dividends here, drawn from life, as the filmmaker moved from a Buddhist monastery upbringing to the rigorous and highly-demanding virtues of an art school aged only 15, and is able to capture both life experiences at once. A great director can capture contradictions and show their complete experience, and that’s where Altay Ulan Yang takes us with Hyena.
It’s a Wonderful Night of the Living Dead
Public domain is a playground where filmmakers can experiment with known resources, which is what the directing duo of brothers Dan & John Bell do with It’s a Wonderful Night of the Living Dead, which transports George Romero’s zombies into the Christmastime atmosphere of Bedford Falls. It’s a short editing project, but is a fun way to use materials in a way they were absolutely not intended to be used. The concern would be if AI were used to transpose these materials, but it seems like the filmmakers used rotoscoping and composting techniques to blend their sources.
Man Eating Pussy
Somehow both exactly what it says it is and nothing like what you think. This is the future Liberals want.
Oh Whale
Exceptionally fun local interest story about a reporter who reported hundreds of stories, but one specific story about a beached whale being blown up with dynamite made him locally famous in Florence, Oregon. If the 1970s could have the equivalent of a viral video, a reporter in small town Florence, Oregon covering a beached whale being exploded with dynamite would be a peak opportunity for virality. What makes Oh Whale so winning is its inherently charming story — the very same factor that made the story so explosive — a whale full of dynamite. As the blubber and gibs of whale guts go flying across the sand dunes, it’s the reporter of the story who becomes the subject. Oh Whale, really, is about the joy this silly story brought to a community and of the thousands of stories Paul Linnman reported, how this one with very little outside impact, is the one which stuck and made him a small town celebrity. Small town news in its own right is incredibly worthy of study and produces remarkable human interest stories. Perhaps Linnman couldn’t understand the value of the story back then, but it’s clear he does now. Because it’s bigger than him and just about as equally big as the whale. A story that belongs to everyone.
Once in a Body
Abstract animation that acts as a call for self-love. Which is a good and valuable thing and enough for a short, when the animation is this clever, and lovingly rendered through clearly hard graft and dedication to aesthetics. Whether there is a direct story is not so important, if you can feel something, and understand what filmmaker María Cristina Pérez González feels. Filmmaking as an act of empathetic reaching-out.
Paper Trails
After my Dad passed away last month, it was left to me to go through all his things alone. No instructions, just my Dad’s stuff, and empty spaces where he used to be. It’s been a wonderful and terrible adventure through the life of one of the people I love the most. Wonderful in that through his stuff, I’ve come to understand him better as a person, and things I spent my life wondering about have been explained. Those are my gift and I’ll keep them for myself. Terrible because all I have left is stuff and not my Dad. That’s where my mind wandered for the 14 minutes of Paper Trail, a uniquely affecting movie, considering it presents a lifetime of scrap paper and nothing more. And still it manages to draw out a character we seem to know, from when he drew in uncertain lines as a kid, to when his signature flattened out, until it resembled something like those initial squiggly lines. When it’s all said and done, what are you leaving behind?
Scratch
Local package about a young, lonely woman who aspires to beatbox. Comedic, sharp, and short, gets right to the point, and is just funny and clever enough to make good on the central gag. Sold by the editing of Lucas Bohlinger and the central performances — Lamorne Morris and Rachel Marsh are both quite good here, and need to be, because it all rests on them, and they’re winning.
Wall Udder
Comedic take on marital dysfunction, wherein a couple argue about their prized wall udders. Has the husband been getting his desires met by these wall-mounted teats? It’s a silly, deadpan thing, and hard to take the core issues of the characters too seriously given their situation, but that’s the point, to skewer these issues with laughter. The good thing about short films is, sometimes, you get to be as strange as you want to be, and nobody will judge too harshly.