Short of the Week
Ever since we started a submissions process for Short of the Week, we’ve always operated a strict ‘no waiver’ policy. However, while we always believed the cost to submit to S/W to be fair, in comparison to other platforms and festivals, we knew there was more we could be doing to support those filmmakers who couldn’t pay the fee. With that in mind, August saw us launch the Unsanctioned Shorts Competition, an initiative looking to showcase the work of filmmakers who are usually shut out from submitting to festivals due to sanctions.
Much like our new platform Shortverse, this is another move to help those filmmakers that Short of the Week excluded (for one reason or another) and is also the start of a new competition series we will be running on both sites. Keep an eye out for more opportunities real soon. – Rob Munday, Managing Editor.
Team Favorites
When it came to shorts, the summer months are usually quiet ones here at Short of the Week, but August saw that start to change, as we enter the busy months before the end of the year. We featured 18 shorts throughout the month, from Iris Prize-winners to madcap musicals, but the trio of films picked by our team as ‘Best of the Month’ include two very different documentaries and an animation of impressive craft.
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Hanging On by Alfie Barker
Regeneration is a word that seemingly has positive attributes, conjuring up images of restoration and improvement. Yet in the world of housing, it’s a term that for many is associated with hopelessness and despair, with the redevelopment of areas seeing many lose their beloved family homes as those on lower incomes are forced out of their community. Alfie Barker’s inventive 10-minute documentary, Hanging On, is the tale of one such group, as they fight to hold on to the estate that many have called home for decades.
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Holy Cowboys by Varun Chopra
In a monumental work of short filmmaking, returning artist Varun Chopra (Lyrically Bleating Horns) has found the fulcrum upon which his country’s future rests and determines that it is based on a “potent irony”. A story of politics at the micro-level, Holy Cowboys is a dispatch from rural India at a momentous time for the country as the world’s largest democracy threatens to slide into an authoritarian-lead religious nationalism.
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Stay by Yu Sun
While the subject matter isn’t particularly novel – the effects an unconventional upbringing has on a young adult seems prime material for emerging filmmakers – the decision to employ embroidery in bringing it to the screen certainly injects a unique angle to Stay. With the choice to use this specific animation technique inspired by a quote by artist Louise Bourgeois, which claimed “the needle is used to repair the damage. It’s a claim to forgiveness”, Sun created around 726 pieces of hand embroidery in the short.
Shortverse Best of the Month
Over on Shortverse, our team picked nine shorts as our Best of the Month for August 2023, including a charming needle-felt animation, a hilarious tale of directors caught in a meta loop and the story of a ’70s music trio with harmony issues.
