Short of the Week
Over the years since Short of the Week started we’ve expanded our focus beyond that of just short films and into the worlds of television and feature films. We’ve long had an interest in all areas of entertainment and technology, however, this extension of coverage isn’t solely down to our fascination with the areas, but largely motivated by the success of our ever-expanding list of alumni.
Reporting on the accomplishments of our alums is something we do with great pride and enthusiasm her at S/W and nothing gives us more pleasure than diving into the programmes of some of the festival circuit’s largest and most-revered events and seeing our previously featured filmmakers in their line-ups.
From Berlin to Cannes, as more emerging directors move from the world of short film to features we’re recognising a greater number of filmmakers in the festival selections every year and although we can’t cover every festival, it’s hard to ignore the “big” ones. With that in mind, in the UK there are none bigger than the BFI London Film Festival and this year’s selection sees eight of our alums with debut features playing the event. Unless you’re attending a festival they’re playing in the future, you may have to wait a while until you can see them, but these are titles you’ll definitely want to be adding to your Watchlist.
Birth/Rebirth
Dir. Laura Moss
S/W Films: Fry Day
Synopsis: A morgue technician successfully reanimates the body of a little girl, but to keep her breathing, she will need to harvest biological materials from pregnant women. When the girl’s mother, a nurse, discovers her baby alive, they enter into a deal that forces them both down a dark path of no return.
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Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano
Dir. Cyril Aris
S/W Films: The President’s Visit
Synopsis: On August 4th 2020, an explosion hits the port of Beirut destroying a large part of Lebanon’s capital. A Lebanese film crew decides to continue shooting their movie, in a nation struggling with economic turmoil and societal collapse.
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How To Have Sex
Dir. Molly Manning Walker
S/W Films: Run (cinematographer)
Synopsis: Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday – drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
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Molli and Max in the Future
Dir. Michael Lukk Litwak
S/W Films: The Life and Death of Tommy Chaos and Stacey Danger, Napoleon in Exile, Alpha Squadron
Synopsis: A sci-fi romantic comedy about a man and woman whose orbits repeatedly collide over the course of 12 years, 4 planets, 3 dimensions, and one space-cult.
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Sky Peals
Dir. Moin Hussain
S/W Films: Real Gods Require Blood, Naptha
Synopsis: Adam Muhammed works nightshifts at a fast food restaurant in a motorway service station. A directionless and unassuming man, he lives a lonely life. Upon hearing that his father has died Adam finds himself in search of answers.
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Stopmotion
Dir. Robert Morgan
S/W Films: The Cat with Hands, Bobby Yeah
Synopsis: A stop-motion animator struggles to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother.
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The End We Start From
Dir. Mahalia Belo
S/W Films: Volume
Synopsis: As catastrophic floods submerge Britain, a young woman and her newborn baby struggle to find safe haven in a crumbling, dangerous society.
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The Kitchen
Dir. Kibwe Tavares
S/W Films: Robots of Brixton, Jonah, Robot + Scarecrow
Synopsis: In a dystopian London, the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only The Kitchen remains. A community that refuses to move out of the place they call home. This is where we meet a solitary Izi, living here by necessity and desperately trying to find a way out, and a 12-year-old Benji, who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them.
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Alongside these debut features, there are a number of more recognisable names, who have graced the pages of S/W, in this year’s programme:
- Expats by Lulu Wang (Touch)
- Gasoline Rainbow by Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross (Dinosaur Curtains)
- Les Indésirables by Ladj Ly (Les Misérables)
- May December by Todd Haynes (Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story)
- Priscilla by Sofia Coppola (Lick the Star)
- The Pigeon Tunnel by Errol Morris (Survivors)