I am unable to recall many great short films about acting. Feel free to educate me in the comments, but the Fellini-inspired travails of wannabe auteurs seem to be a much more common subject in this medium. The simple narcissism of the writer/directors who dominate short filmmaking explains this state of affairs, but it seems odd that, in a navel-gazing industry, such a key component of the art is neglected. 

The Victorias therefore easily jumps to near the top of my list of the “best short films about acting”. A conversation with 7 young performers who play the role of “Victoria”, a 14-year-old Jewish immigrant at New York City’s beloved Tenement Museum, the “Vickies”, as they call themselves, take shifts improvising the role for visitors—going about Victoria’s imagined daily routine but also interacting with guests. They are officially referred to as “costumed interpreters” rather than actors, and perhaps it is the unorthodox nature of the role that allows the film to function as a surprisingly deep exploration of the acting craft, unburdened by our traditional theater or film associations. 

If that description sounds only modestly interesting, trust me, I feel you. Directed by Ethan Fuirst, who used to work at the Tenement Museum alongside the Vickies, the film is a pandemic-era product with a barebones visual presentation. I’m on the record as favoring “cinematic” documentaries that largely eschew “talking-heads”, but talking-heads are the predominant mode of the film. The b-roll is basic, the archival materials—rudimentary. And yet…the conversations are just splendid. Fuirst, along with his editor, Emily Packer, intercut the interviews in such a natural flow, where the individual stories and experiences seamlessly comment upon, build, and thematically transition from one another. Big subjects—religion, race, sexuality are organically touched upon in a really illuminating manner. When you watch hundreds of short films a year, you tend to get “itchy” during most of them, a sort of impatience where you desire the film to move past a slow-moving or inept segment and just make its damn point already. Thus, as modest as it sounds, to say that I did not “get itchy” during The Victorias 15min runtime is some of the highest praise I can offer.

Ultimately, it is from the performers and their stories that the film draws its power. The best analogy for The Victorias is the modern oral history magazine piece, as I’m liable to get sucked into one of those no matter how tenuous my connection to the underlying subject is. So while the experiences of contemporary New Yorkers attempting to get into the headspace of a turn-of-the-century Sephardic Jew would, ordinarily, only capture a millisecond of my attention as a headline in my social feed of choice, you best believe that I was brushing away tears alongside the actors as they recounted the class of Muslim girls adamantly demanding that “Victoria” not give up her dream of becoming a teacher, or, how one Vicky came to terms with her evolving sexuality via her exploration of the character. It is astonishing the level of connection the performers inspire in such a short timeframe, and when the subject turns to the pandemic, it is a punch in the gut. 

For these reasons, The Victorias is a great testament to why you cannot program short films off of loglines and film stills, you’ve got to watch the film. One of the most pleasant surprises for me in 2022, kudos to Aspen Shortsfest, where the film premiered and it first attracted our attention, and to The New Yorker for picking it up for distribution. Fuirst is coy about his next project, but it should be unveiled soon— for now, all he’ll divulge is that is “a film about an imp.”