Rob Munday
With one month of 2022 down, the team here at Short of the Week are already busy working on a number of projects for the year. Our annual Short Awards, where we’ll celebrate our 2021 coverage by recognising the best films we featured in a number of categories, will be announced very soon. And we’ve got another, much bigger project, that’s very near completion – keep an eye on our site and social for more news of that.
A lot of our January coverage revolved around the short films vying for a prize at this year’s Academy Awards. We put our five recommendations, for each of the three categories, forward in this Voter’s Guide article and featured five films from the shortlists: The Windshield Wiper, T’es Morte Hélène (You‘re Dead Helen), Souvenir Souvenir, The Dress and Day of Rage.
The first month of the year isn’t all about awards buzz though as one of the highlights of the festival calendar takes place at this time – Sundance. With the in-person event once again curtailed due to COVID-19 restrictions, the festival went online and we dived into the programme with our Festival Preview, spoke to alum Jim Archer about his feature adaption of Brian and Charles (ahead of its Sundance premiere) and joined the celebration of its rich short film history with our Best Short Films from the Sundance Archive playlist.
January was a good month for alum news as well. First, we were excited to see the release of the much-anticipated short anthology The House on Netflix (featuring Emma de Swaef & Marc Roels – directors of S/W fav. Oh Willy…), before the talented Stefanie Abel Horowitz (sometimes, I think about dying) provided essential insight into making the transition to podcast directing.
TEAM FAVOURITES
From India to Romania and Kuwait to Australia, the 19 films we showcased in January featured an array of stories from around the world. For our Best of the Month trio, the S/W team invite you to take a ride on a haunted bus, delve into a grandfather’s memories of the Algerian war and witness the organised chaos of the United States Capitol attack. While our Most Viewed short from January explores the topic of love, through a series of striking animated vignettes.
***
Night Bus by Henrietta & Jessica Ashworth
As a big horror fan I don’t get easily spooked, but when I first saw Night Bus a couple of years ago at a BFI screening I found it utterly terrifying. Needless to say, I loved it! Both chilling and thrilling, this horrifying gem avoids genre cliches and proves that you don’t need a massive budget to create some excellent scares – Serafima Serafimova
***
Souvenir Souvenir by Bastien Dubois
A festival favourite that now finds itself on the Oscar shortlists, I don’t think it would be an overstatement to label Souvenir Souvenir as one of the best-animated shorts you’re likely to see in 2022. If you’re yet to catch this striking tale of a grandson trying to come to terms with his grandfather’s participation in the Algerian war, watch it while you can – if it makes the nomination round, it might not be online for much longer. – Rob Munday
***
Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol by Malachy Browne & David Botti
It’s intimidating to tackle a hi-profile event such as 1/6 in a film, but the NyTime’s Visual Investigations team met the challenge. A staggering technical and storytelling achievement, the team sourced and timed thousands of video and audio sources, not only weaving them into something coherent, but also compelling. – Jason Sondhi
***
MOST VIEWED
Alberto Mielgo’s The Windshield Wiper – click on image to watch the film on YouTube
The Windshield Wiper by Alberto Mielgo
Shortlisted for an Oscar, The Windshield Wiper is an impressive animated short by acclaimed artist Alberto Mielgo, whose work you might know from his film The Witness in Netflix’s Love Death + Robots anthology series and within the critically acclaimed Marvel film Into the Spiderverse. Comprised entirely of short vignettes about love and drawn from his experiences travelling across the world, Mielgo’s film is nothing short of eye-candy and captures the essence of human connection in a way that is absolutely visceral – this is a must-watch! – Chelsea Lupkin
***