Short of the Week
April was a busy month for alum news here at Short of the Week – from speaking to filmmaker Seán Mullan about the experience of making short films with Netflix to inviting director Alex Grigg to introduce us to his new educational initiative Animation for Anyone. We also had our regular round-up of alum updates, which included our Watchlist of projects (features and television) that can be viewed now and our In-Development post highlighting upcoming work from our previously featured filmmakers.
TEAM FAVOURITES
Throughout the 30-days of April, we welcomed a host of new names to join the S/W alum family, while also opening the door for a few returning faces. From the 16 films featured on our platform over the month, we witnessed love on a landfill, a radical group of activist male nuns and a little nipple whispering. For our trio of handpicked favorites, we’ll transport you to a vision of Kolkata where the rising water levels aren’t the only danger, delve into a sensual PowerPoint presentation and take you on a journey through sun-baked Mexican landscapes with a ghost.
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La Oscuridad by Jorge Sistos Moreno
If you think short horror films are predictable, then I can’t recommend Jorge Sistos Moreno’s La Oscuridad enough. With a narrative grounded in reality and based around a slow creeping dread, instead of those familiar jump scares, this 13-minute short is an unsettling new take on the ghost story – Rob Munday
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Average Happiness by Maja Gehrig
I have to admit that I sometimes find it hard to engage with experimental animation, but Average Happiness turned out to be a visceral, almost transcendental experience for me. A comment on the modification of data in modern society or just an elaborate take on what might happen when your mind wanders during a PowerPoint presentation, this film is about nothing much and EVERYTHING at the same time. When you give yourself over to Maja Gehrig’s minimalist masterpiece, it can create a sensation you won’t find anywhere else in the content economy. Average Happiness is not just one of the most interesting shorts of the last month, but for me it felt like one of the most distinguished art works in any form or media I’ve seen a while. – Georg Csarmann
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Wade by Kalp Sanghvi & Upamanyu Bhattacharyya
Gorgeously animated world-building that instills the gravity of the globe’s imminent climate crisis, Kalp Sanghvi and Upamanyu Bhattacharyya’s fantastical approach to survival is altogether thought-provoking. Watch as a family of climate change refugees are ambushed by a tiger in this post-apocalyptic version of India – Chelsea Lupkin
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MOST VIEWED
Every Other Week by Ryan Wagner
It should come as no real surprise that Ryan Wagner’s heart-warming comedy Every Other Week was our Most-Viewed new release in April, as it really has a lot going for it. A two-hander, featuring beautiful performances from Michael Sturgis and Jacqueline Wright, Wagner’s short lures you in with the laughs then slaps you across the face with its raw emotion. There’s nothing showy or fancy about it (except for those performances), but it really is a feel-good watch.
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