Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Palm Springs in 2015, Jörn Threlfall’s unusual short Over uses reverse chronological storytelling to reveal the incidents which caused a crime scene in a quiet neighbourhood suburb. A leisurely-paced short with an overwhelmingly powerful and surprising resolution, Over is a film which calls for a patience not always associated with online audiences, but those of you who grant it the attention it deserves, will find it a hugely rewarding and memorable experience.

Regular visitors to Short of the Week will know we usually reserve our Saturday slot for what we describe as “Long Shorts” – short films with a run-time of over 20-minutes. However, in recent times I’ve taken to looking at this slot with a slightly different perspective…curating films that require a greater level of attention and patience than the average film we feature on our platform, Over is a film that perfectly fits with this new way of thinking.

“I make the viewer be the detective”

At just 14-minutes in length, 6-minutes under the minimum duration we usually classify a long short as, Threlfall’s Bafta-nominated short is an enigmatic watch, that relies a lot on intrigue to keep the keeper gripped. Based on a real-life event (which we won’t disclose here as it will spoil the impact of the film) and told through a series of static shots, the director reveals in an interview with London newspaper the Evening Standard that he created his unorthodox approach to storytelling to make his audience take part in the unravelling of this story. “I make the viewer be the detective”, says Threlfall, “I didn’t want to tell it in a conventional way. This story was so sad and desperate it needed a different way of telling…it’s like shards and fragments, it was quite an intense way of making sure the viewer stayed with it. In the cinema I see viewers leaning forward, as if they want to go closer but can’t”.

Named as one of Screen International’s ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ in 2015, Threlfall’s name wasn’t one I was aware of before watching this short, but after viewing Over, the impression his film has left on me means his will be a name I won’t forget very quickly.