SHORT FOCUS - Issue 5 by framelight

SHORT FOCUS The world’s premier short film journal.

Issue 5

‘Kaduna’ Oct-Dec 2021

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The issue of diversity is normally a hot topic around this time of year for many media publications, particularly during Black History Month. Anyone already familiar with SHORT FOCUS magazine will recognise that diversity,

inclusivity, and globalism are already at the heart of our explorations in short form cinema. So, in some ways it feels a little redundant to dedicate this issue alone to diverse cultural ideas. Every single issue of our magazine is a celebration of pure audiovisual creativity from all walks of life. And while this specific edition won’t tick every box, collectively you will be able to build a clear and beautiful picture of the world we love. Our cover feature, Kaduna (p.18), is a stunning interpretive dance piece from Nigeria, which acts as a poetic symbol of unity, simplicity, history, community, and love. Elsewhere, we champion not only the excellent content we see on camera, but also the great voices behind them, with brilliant inclusions from Giulia Gandini and Lily Blackham (Home Stream, p.30), Quinn Feldman, Alyse Rockett, Jordan Slaffey, Jasmine Sugar (Voices, p.62), and an interview with upcoming director, Chelsey D’Adesky (Chi Chi, p.36). As these and the many other articles in this issue will demonstrate,... We believe in the power of short film. Editor: Dean Archibald-Smith Creative Directors: Dean Archibald-Smith, Aya Ishizuka Contributors: Wendy Brooking, Sally Roberts, Will Whitehead.

FLTV = Film is available to watch on FLTV. Advertising queries: info@framelight.org The online version of this journal is interactive. To engage with content, click on the title of a film review or the company logo of an advertisement. Where you cannot click on a title, there is no content available. Articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinions and attitudes of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publishing or editorial team.

Published by FRAME LIGHT Group Ltd. 7 Bell Yard, London, WC2A 2JR Made with paper from sustainable resources. SHORT FOCUS is published quarterly.

o one watching the final of the 2021 Euros could deny the importance of football. Veering wildly from a national affection for Gareth Southgate’s waistcoats to the vile racial abuse suffered by several young players, the power of the beautiful game to both unite and divide is as strong as ever.

Leo

Moein Rooholamini, Iran, 2020

In Leo, the second film from award-winning director, Moein Rooholamini, two small boys remind us of the importance of football and imagination in even the most difficult situations. Comprised mainly of one close-up shot, it spotlights a wannabe commentator giving it his all from behind bars. What really makes the short is Hasankhoshhalat’s explosive performance as the young football fanatic. His fiery voice and expressive face, one minute lit up by expectation and the next ravaged by indignation, is initially both engaging and amusing. Adult lines such as “Yes, the referee has been bought,” are comically out of place in the mouth of a child. Similarly, the seriousness with which he lifts his showerhead microphone and bottle binoculars to his face shows the kind of commitment to his imaginary role that is difficult to achieve once childhood has passed.

However, as the camera zooms out bit by bit, the film’s youthful charm is undercut by the boys’ harsh reality. This clever bit of camera work is highly effective in communicating how their imaginary oasis of ‘Small Messi’ and false fouls cannot last forever. As armed soldiers berate them, the spell is broken. Although this is by no means a happy ending, Leo’s resounding message is one of hope and resilience. The dogged belief that they will surely win the game is contagious, as is their ability to keep dreaming in such terrible surroundings. In five minutes, Rooholamini’s film manages to engage, amuse and, most of all, inspire. Sally Roberts

uth Beni and Daniel Greaves’ All of Our Shadows is a sensitive and compassionate look at the fears and anxieties of a schoolboy in central London. The animation, lush and richly textured, creates a comfortable and almost childlike atmosphere, which contrasts powerfully with the serious tone of the film’s narrative. The intrusion of anxiety and fear into such a visually comfortable space creates a deep atmosphere of sadness, lending the film an emotional resonance that goes beyond its aesthetics or narrative alone.

All of Our Shadows Ruth Beni/Daniel Greaves, UK, 2020

The film details a day in the life of a young boy plagued by anxiety, terrified of the knife crime and gang violence that seems to pervade his and his schoolmates’ lives. The fear, represented by an ominous dark cloud that follows the boy, renders him quiet and introverted. At school he is withdrawn, unable to concentrate and hounded by the ever-looming cloud of fear. However, a classmate reaches out to our protagonist, offering him comfort and revealing that they, too, suffer from stress and anxiety. Eventually, many of his classmates come forward and share their experiences with anxiety, and the boy is soothed by the notion that he is no longer alone. Visually, the style of All of Our Shadows is tactile and warm, reminiscent of a children’s TV show and a million miles from the minimalist “Alegria” style animation that plagues so much of today’s animated films. There is a sincerity to it, a soul which immediately strikes the viewer, drawing us in emotionally as well as aesthetically. The eponymous shadows which envelop the warm animation are thus made so much more powerful, covering and blocking the happy, kind colours. Similarly, All of Our Shadows’ sound design is expressive and moving, reflecting the intense ups and downs of living with anxiety. At times it pounds, driving the piece along with energetic drum work. At others, the sound drops out completely and we are left with a silence that deafens, opening up a chasm of fear, which is as impactful as any sound that preceded it. This keen awareness of the effect of sound and visuals on the affective power of the film elevates the piece and deepens its emotional complexity. As the film progresses, it taps into a vein of heartfelt kindness. The boy’s classmates, all of whom are ostensibly quite different to him, reveal their own personal stresses and fears. Although the writing here is rough and a little overly sentimental, it does not detract but rather heightens the sweetness of the film. The children speak like children, explaining their fears clumsily and frankly, and here is where the film is at its peak. There is a deep sadness to be found in the horrors of racism, violence, and confusion the children are exposed to, but also a warmth in their resilience to it. All of Our Shadows is sad in its relevance and its necessity, but it does not dwell on the horrors of violence and horror. Instead, it focuses on the power of camaraderie in the face of fear, and ultimately empowers the anxious and scared. Will Whitehead

All This Red

FLTV

Giacomo Gex, UK, 2020

he video for ‘All This Red’ by This Be The Verse is atmospheric, claustrophobic, and tense, visualising the heavy, controlled chaos of the song itself. The grainy quality of the film reflects the gritty, fuzzy tone of the guitars and the fast-paced editing and location shifts are analogous to the constantly shifting genres of the music itself. While the narrative of the video does not precisely follow the content of the lyrics, there is a shared motif of urban paranoia.

Lyrically, singer Cyrus King describes the anxiety of city life and the constant fear of violence that pervades contemporary life. The video personifies that fear, representing it through the genuinely scary masked man, who stalks our protagonist through the city and across a cliffside. This atmosphere of fear and suspense is initiated by the heavy guitarwork of the band but is perpetuated and accentuated by director, Giacomo Gex’s shaky, action-led camerawork. The shots of the band performing are intensely close and appear at the energetic high points of the song. Hearing the aggressive riffs and pummeling drums is one thing, but seeing the strings themselves vibrate and the sticks bounce off the drum heads infuses the track and video with such energy that, at these moments, it almost feels as if we are present in the room with the band.

This infusion of video and music is really where All This Red shines. It shifts and changes in style and narrative in accordance with the song’s passages, creating a deep symbiosis, which empowers both the video and the song. Although one can exist without the other, the product of their combination is greater than the sum of its parts. For instance, in the song’s most melodic sections, the video cuts to black and white, changing scenery to an ostensibly peaceful cliffside. The change of location emphasises the song’s change in pace, and the song lends the video an air of uneasy calm. Ultimately, All This Red is engaging and intense, directly challenging the viewer with its disturbing visuals intertwining aggressive riffs. The narrative of the video itself is not particularly revolutionary, but its execution by Gex renders it exciting and fresh. Gex ensures his visuals are intimately connected with the music, complementing and elevating This Be The Verse’s song without ever dominating or overshadowing. Its connection to the song is so attentively crafted that it would be hard to imagine listening to the song without simultaneously visualising Gex’s video, which is perhaps the highest honour a music video could achieve. Will Whitehead

Kaduna

FLTV

Ridwan Adeniyi/Jacob Jonas, Nigeria, 2020

aduna is a riveting and emotional performance of love, unity, and culture represented in their purest forms. This short, simple film expresses magnitudes through the raw power of dance – not dance as accompaniment to music, but dance in and of itself, a pure expression of identity not diluted by language or narrative.

Although there is no specific plot to Kaduna, its themes and motifs are vividly realised by the choreography of the Ebinum brothers, whose performance the film centres around. Identical in looks and dress, the continuity between the two brothers is breathtakingly perfect. As they dance, they mimic one another in perfect time, emphasising their similarities and almost completely eradicating their individuality. The brothers use their own and each other’s bodies with such ingenuity that it becomes impossible to imagine them as separate entities. They become two halves of a whole greater than their individual bodies, and they swirl and contort in such a way that the viewer can no longer see them as performers. Instead, the dance itself becomes the focal point, its power flowing effortlessly through the bodies of the two brothers. There is an incredible tenderness to Kaduna. From the opening shot, a wordless, ineffable love radiates from the screen and between the Ebinum brothers. This love is extremely powerful, informing the film and permeating it with powerful emotion. The dance, intimate and poetic, is accentuated by the genuine compassion radiating from its performers.

Interestingly, this love is contrasted strongly with the colour palette of the film. Kaduna’s scenery is shot in muted tones, its skies blue-grey and the orange of the earth dulled. Likewise the setting, although wonderfully shot, is relatively mundane. There is no specific sense of place. This dulled mundanity means that all the vibrancy and beauty of the piece is located entirely within the performance itself, with all other potential sources of power within the film subordinating themselves. The love that burns through Kaduna is one of brotherhood but also of community. During the end credits, we see the Gbagyi tribe, whose voices are responsible for the sparse soundtrack of the piece. A group of women sit with one another, chanting as one, ostensibly in the same location as the Ebinum brothers, but never intertwining with their performance except as musical accompaniment. Despite this distance, there is a sense that the Gbagyi women are implicated in the piece, an integral element of the film, without which something crucial would be missing. Their voices contribute a vital sense of history to the piece, one which grounds the performance in a bond that stretches back through time.

The compassion central to Kaduna hinges around this sense of historical community, a nonverbal language of performance and music rooted in tradition that transcends time. The involvement of the Gbagyi tribe makes Kaduna a collaborative performance in which no individual performer is privileged and which allows the performance to speak for itself. Above all, it is Kaduna’s simplicity that is so striking to the viewer. As previously mentioned, there is no narrative or plot to the piece and it refuses to dazzle the audience with cinematography or music. Instead, we immediately understand that we are here to watch a dance, and nothing more. Upon being liberated from the usual expectations of watching a film, we are able to revel in the spectacle of simplicity, and can connect on a much more personal level to the dance itself. The fluid beauty of the Ebinum brothers’ movements, their candid adoration for one another and for the art, and the tranquil, ambient sound of the Gbagyi chants, all strip emotion back to its purest form. As a deep, true form of expression without frills or artifice, Kaduna resonates intensely with the viewer, and strikes one with a sense of honesty that is refreshing and gladly welcomed. Will Whitehead

Home Stream

FLTV

Lily Blackham/Giulia Gandini, UK, 2019

pening with an unsteady shot of London’s rainsoaked pavements, gleaming in the drizzle, we are introduced to a view of the Strand. Running parallel to the north bank, the busy thoroughfare is lined with theatres, hotels, and shops, yet these streets are also a home. Home Stream invites us to spend a day with Lily Blackham, a woman living homeless in the bustling metropolis, as she takes us on a tour from the chewing gum-strewn backstreet where she sleeps to playing with her dog, Misty, in the park. Seeking to dispel myths and assumptions about homelessness, she describes her history, circumstances, and ambitions in a touching documentary that humanises her situation in a raw and personal manner.

Since leaving an abusive ten-year marriage, Lily has lived on the streets for a year and a half, regaining her confidence and learning tricks for survival from fellow vagrant, Nick. As she recounts her experiences of love, loss, hope, and everyday problems, any sense of unfounded fear, dehumanisation, or misapprehensions about her circumstances melt away as she describes the consequences of not raising enough money, trying to rehome Misty, and losing the only person she really felt understood her. However, the strength of human kindness is also shown, from the generous £20 notes dropped into her hat to the simple gesture of a pub allowing her to use the lavatory.

The documentary short is a fine example of iPhone filmmaking, allowing Lily to control how she is represented and how her story is told with an unmediated relationship between herself and the handheld camera. Filmed, narrated, co-directed by, and centring on Lily with a minimal production crew, her creative involvement opens an authentic and direct window into life on the streets. The unsteady camerawork and narrow, portrait view of the phone’s lens enhance the sense that we are being treated to a snapshot, a restricted and limited view into a much more widespread matter of people in precarious situations.

Utilising the advantages of such a small filming device, the camera readily accompanies Lily across London, hopping on an iconic red bus towards Old Kent Road, recording the troops of show-goers lining up for the Adelphi Theatre and struggling to keep up with the boundless energy of Misty, whose scampering antics out-manoeuvre the attempts to film her face. In a sense, the everydayness of the camera device allows the filmmaker to go unnoticed in their recording, providing shots of the streets and oblivious passers-by, which hark back to early actualités, whilst simultaneously capturing the view from Lily’s “spot” on the pavement.

Filmed over the course of three days and propelled by Lily’s retelling of her own story, Home Stream is a firsthand account of homelessness. Without a soundtrack, the fluctuating levels of background traffic noise, rain, and people keep the tale firmly grounded in a noisy reality. The directing partnership between Lily Blackham and Giulia Gandini brings the events to life in a simple, understated, yet emotionally impactful way, unravelling a personal journey from one frame to the next. Wendy Brooking

Chi Chi

FLTV

Chelsey D’Adesky, USA, 2020

t is difficult sometimes to fathom how, particularly in 1980s America, there was ever such thing as a criminal “underworld”. With such flagrant displays of wealth, egregious disregard for discretion, and scant concern for lawfulness, “overworld” may have been a more apposite expression. Reverentially mapping the narrative trajectories of popular gangster-police procedurals such as Miami Vice [USA, 1984-89], To Live and Die in L.A. [William Friedkin, USA, 1985] and (mostly clearly) Scarface [Brian De Palma, USA, 1983], there is a sagacious awareness that infuses this stylishly tantalising drama from director, Chelsey d’Adesky.

Much like Brian De Palma, D’Adesky is adept at deconstructing narrative tropes and reconstructing them with a kind of metatextual irony, producing an amalgamation of pop-cultural expressions filtered through a unique and original lens. Foreshadowing the central motif of the film, a fashion poster on the central character’s bedroom wall emblazoned with the name ‘Tabitha’ appears like a slanted reference to the shortlived 70s sitcom of the same name, (itself a spin-off of Bewitched [USA, 1964-72]), in which the eponymous witch casts magic and courts mischief with a simple wiggle of the nose. The film, set in 1984 Miami, centres around Ava (Jenny Watwood), an ambitious, beautiful, but ultimately naïve student, who finds herself very quickly sucked into the heart of a powerful cartel. Ava’s world seems doomed from the outset, as her “coolest” friend Lyla (Katie Luddy) – “the most mature, the first to make out” – introduces her to new Colombian friend, Dany (Nicholas Sellar), by way of a party. Much to the concern of Ava’s similarly guileless father, and spurred on by Lyla, the two girls attend the glamorous and sun-drenched mansion and Dany’s home. The party, awash with colour, champagne and cocaine, is a far cry from Ava’s old-fashioned Lebanese upbringing, a hedonistic paradise with which Ava becomes easily enamoured. Before long, she has moved in with Dany, enjoying all the highs that wealth, fashion, and drug abuse can afford, questioning nothing until she experiences her first of many coke-induced nosebleeds. As the severity of her epistaxis increases, so does the sense that the world around her will eventually come crashing down. Where there was once romance, unwavering trust, and happiness, there is now infidelity, jealousy, and frequent absences. During one of Dany’s “work” trips to the Bahamas, and whilst visiting her parents’ home, Ava receives a phone call from a federal agent, and here the penny finally drops.

Chi Chi is a slick and efficient drama, lacquered with the requisite visual sheen for a story of this sort. Shot on 16mm colour stock, the film has the necessary grainy quality to provide a seedy edge to the surface glamour that the criminal world brings with it. Paired with an electro-synth and disco-fuelled soundtrack, the film’s tropical, Day-Glo mise-en-scene casts a keen, postmodern eye upon this period and place with authentic rigour.

Watwood’s central performance is engaging and believable, despite the speed in which her character arc develops. Based on a true story, it is easy to treat this film as a chapter within a much grander tapestry and, provided with enough backstory, Chi Chi could work well as a feature. As a standalone fifteen-minute short, it works incredibly well to chart the dizzying highs and empty lows of a life in crime. Dean Archibald-Smith

INTERVIEW From Chelsey to Miami: an interview with Chelsey D’Adesky, director of Chi Chi. side. It turned out that the other woman was there with his friend. What they would do at the time was go to the Bahamas to transfer the drugs onto a smaller boat and take it themselves over to Miami. When the authorities started to get suspicions, they would bring a woman along with them to make it look like they were there on vacation. This was the case on the trip where Dany got caught.

Wendy Brooking: Why did you choose the nickname ‘Chi Chi’ for the title? Chelsey D’Adesky (pictured right): The title was the first thing that I decided on for this story. I remember my mum telling me about Miami in the 80s, about Dany, and all the things she went through before she met my dad, got married and settled down. Every time she would talk about this period, she would impersonate Dany and how he would call her ‘Chi Chi’. She told me about how sweet, funny, and smart he was, and how he always seemed to get away with anything by making light of the situation and calling her nicknames. This image really stuck with me and as I got to speak to Dany and connect with him more, I totally understood what she meant. There is an endearing quality when someone has a special name for you. An immediate closeness, which is something I wanted to focus on in this film.

WB: Why did you choose to shoot the film on stock rather than digitally? CD: One of the first things my DP and I decided on was to shoot this on film. It was really important to capture the world as it was during the 80s and the 16mm film grain helped lean into that aesthetic so naturally. We rented our equipment from a family-owned company that had been around forever. Fun fact: the owner went to high school with my dad, and they were in the same graduating class. The owner grew up working on sets with his dad around Miami and told us some of the equipment we used was the same equipment used on Scarface and Miami Vice.

WB: How closely is it tied to the true story? CD: It is very close, a truncated version. I really tried to stay true to the essence of the characters. Dany and my mum are still friendly to this day, so I spent hours on the phone with him trying to gather all the facts.

WB: What were the ideas behind Ava’s costuming? We were looking to show a progression of Ava’s character through the evolution of her personal style. Moving from juvenile and naïve to more grown-up, flashy, fashionable, and sophisticated.

But then when it came time to write the script, I had to do a lot of condensing of time and events to fit it into a short film format. To keep close to the story, I really leaned into creating a strong sense of mood, atmosphere, and world with the music, styling, production design, and character performances.

My mum was very present throughout the production design and costuming process to help keep things as authentic as possible. We tried to tie in as many real pieces as we could. The Louis Vuitton bag is my mum’s and was actually from Dany; the red suitcase was my grandmother’s from the 60s; the pink dress Ava wears on the boat is my mum’s.

Another thing that was true was the Lyla character. My mom spent the last 20 years thinking that when Dany got caught in the Bahamas, it was while he was with another woman. It was only when we started talking about the story and script that my mum heard Dany’s

I also worked with an incredible stylist team that helped source authentic vintage pieces and accessories from that time. WB: This is just the start of Ava’s story, so what’s next for her? CD: Where we leave off in the story is really just the beginning of Ava’s journey into self-realization and taking control over her own life, not relying on outside voices to influence where and what she is interested in. That stage of life in your early twenties is so powerful in terms of transformation and integration, and I think we leave Ava right as she is beginning to stand up for herself. I guess we will have to just wait and see if I can make the next chapter for the details. WB: Is there a particular message or emotion which you would like to impart to viewers of the film? CD: I want the viewer to have a good time watching Chi Chi. I love the idea of getting lost in a bit of a trance when you watch something that creates a really strong sense of world. The big takeaway for me is the importance of finding your own voice and connecting with your inner strength. Don’t get lost in someone else’s world, create your own. Especially as a young woman. WB: This is your second short film, what’s next for you as a director? CD: I am writing a mini-series now that was inspired by a location I found when I was scouting for Chi Chi actually. I also started a production company called 432films with my two best friends. We produce music videos, commercials, and narrative projects with a focus on conscious and sustainable themes. Moving forward, something that is increasingly important to me is using the power of sound and healing vibrations in my work. I think now more than ever the voice of the artist should be [used] to elevate the collective conscious and lift the spirit. Even if that means just creating something beautiful that is fun to experience for a few moments. Chi Chi is available on FLTV www.framelight.org/fltv

The Moderator Elliot Gaynon, UK, 2020

very social media feed of sassy babies and Kermit memes is the product of a moderator. Working behind the scenes of our hours of scrolling, they remove anything deemed too horrifying for general consumption. Aliyu Gambo’s The Moderator works much like a photonegative of visible virtual content by turning the focus to these hidden spaces and people that inversely shape our online experience.

The story opens with Ade, an exemplary moderator who, thanks to his record number of ‘take-downs’, is being interviewed for a promotion. However, the distance between his professionalism and the horror of his job snaps shut when his mental health is called into question. While the film does open our eyes as to the atrocities that surface from the Internet’s murky depths, the content itself is not the main character. One feels that rather than directing a moralising gaze at the actions being committed (after all, we already know that burning people alive is a bad thing), we are placed in the gap between real human actions and virtual content.

For example, Ade’s interview is interrupted by bursts of his screen-reflecting face as he takes down one disturbing clip after another. Although the viewer hears the sounds, they do not see what is happening except through the distorted reflections in Ade’s glasses. This places emphasis on the point of interaction between the violence and the viewer. Although, of course, addressing the acts themselves is highly worthy, this interrogation of the space in between gives The Moderator an original perspective.

This short also highlights the problematic ways in which atrocities are discussed. The film opens with Ade narrating a set of instructions about what to take down. It is jarring to hear such extreme acts linguistically sanitised in the restrained register of workplace guidelines. In a way, the checklist of horrors becomes even more disturbing because of its banality as an accepted part of the daily grind. “Four hundred take-downs was it?” asks the impressed HR manager, seemingly unaware or uncaring that this means four hundred acts of extreme violence.

As the film comes to an end, professional jargon gives way to screams and gunshots; the sterile, metallic office is overcome with flashing lights and alarms, and the numbing gap between the viewer and the violence is closed. Ade is certainly traumatised, but perhaps not as seriously as those involved in the acts he sees. Perhaps you have seen The Moderator on the stream of this year’s Short Focus Film Festival, or maybe you found this review from our Instagram page. Floating on a tiny point on the visible surface of the web, it successfully draws our attention to the dark mass beneath, and our own proximity to unthinkable violence. Sally Roberts

Outside the Box Ross Mackenzie, UK, 2019

n 2021, deserted city centres and empty motorways are no longer inconceivable, and getting out of the office to have time for yourself may no longer seem like an escape. However, shot in the halcyon days of 2019, Outside the Box revels in a world before Zoom, as an office worker shirks his dreary duties and discovers a new world when he finds a mysterious box.

Although the plot could be considered quite unoriginal – the character is unhappy, he has an adventure and returns a changed man – the charm of this film lies in its simplicity. There is something endearingly innocent in the drab, thirty-something office worker whose main goal is to find a fitting birthday present for his beloved cat. This childlike quality can also be seen in the candycoloured cinematography and satisfyingly symmetrical shots that make even dullest of places look like a dolly mixture daydream. The style of comedy follows suit, eschewing a gag-filled script to focus on physical humour.

Outside the Box is refreshing in its refusal to do anything or mean anything other than giving the audience a good time. Although we are all still reconfiguring how and where we work in a world that has changed so much since this film was made, this allure of escape is ever present.

Both Chris Bastin and Ashley Robson shine as the main character and his office nemesis respectively, their expressive faces creating a convincing visual dialogue. What’s more, it is undeniably funny to watch a man in a suit riding around on inappropriately small fairground rides, digging into a giant ice cream, and bursting forth in a white satin wedding dress. Indeed, the unbridled silliness of the whole thing is what makes it so appealing: as the man walks away unscathed from a serious car crash, we can relax knowing that this is escapism at full throttle.

Sally Roberts

The Motorist

FLTV

Ciaran Lyons, UK, 2020

iaran Lyons’ The Motorist is a dense, disturbing, and cryptic slice of folk horror. This atmospheric and intense piece defies easy interpretation, forcing the viewer to chew on its moody, disturbing imagery, and ambiguous narrative. The film follows a man who appears to be stuck in his car, surrounded by what Lyons calls “hasslers”. The hasslers, led by a priest, perform a kind of ritual, which binds the man to his car and transforms him into a sacrifice to an unknown deity. The narrative lacks context, motive or rationale, instead utilising confusion and ambiguity to create a terrifying and deeply unsettling spectacle.

As the film delves into this sense of confusion, The Motorist takes on a distinctive touch of the Lynchian. This is not to say that it engages with empty aesthetic homages to David Lynch’s films, but instead that it taps into the same sense of the uncanny that makes Lynch’s work so brilliant. The horror in The Motorist cuts through rationality and logic, and hits the viewer on a deeper, almost unconscious level. Its intense discomfort is primal and instinctual, in keeping with the folkish, pagan atmosphere of the film.

These allusions to paganism – specifically through ritual and idolatry – ground the film in some deep historical meaning, revealing a repressed mythology that is at extreme odds with the film’s contemporary setting. They suggest a desire to regress to a simpler past, to reject modernity and to access a kind of magical anti-intellectualism. This regression is in keeping with the film’s ambiguity, refusing to allow an easy, logical explanation but instead focusing on the subconscious and away from the intellect. In this way, the film is reminiscent of Jonathan Glazer’s recent The Fall [UK, 2019], which also understands that abstraction and metaphor makes for much more impactful horror than clarity and hyper-realism.

The film’s rich tapestry of imagery and atmosphere – created by the bleak, arid setting, the eerily stoic priest, and the ambiguous narrative – is elevated by the film’s stunning cinematography, which emphasises the bleakness of its setting and intertwines with Chris Lyons’ pummeling score. The effect is hypnotic, pulling the viewer into a kind of trance, with one particularly eerie moment seeing the landscape rapidly switch from day to night and back in time with the score. Moments like these accentuate the sense of unreality that permeates The Motorist and make it so powerfully horrifying.

Folk-horror is somewhat in vogue at present, with the tremendous success of Ari Aster’s Midsommar [USA/Sweden, 2019] and Robert Eggers’ The Witch [USA/Canada, 2015] causing ripples across pop culture. It would be easy to categorise The Motorist as just another trend-jumper, but to do that would do a disservice to exactly what Lyons achieves in this film. He steers clear of over-reliance on icons and ritual, allowing them to inform and enrich the film’s themes rather than dominating them. He also accesses the brutal, animalistic violence at the heart of folk-horror without romanticising or aestheticising it. In short, he creates true ugly horror, which taps into a contemporary cultural moment without becoming seduced by that moment – a hypnotic glimpse into our own terrifying collective subconscious. Will Whitehead

Voices

FLTV

Quinn Feldman/Alyse Rockett/ Jordan Slaffey/Jasmine Sugar, USA, 2021

oices is a spectacular, vibrant celebration of identity. Quinn Feldman’s documentary places black women centre stage, combining gorgeous cinematography, choreography and music overlaid with personal testimonies from black women. This creates a dazzling spectacle, which feels joyous and victorious, but also truly honest and unflinching. Voices does not shy away from the pain of the black female experience, but crucially refuses to dwell in the negative, instead elevating and glorifying black women.

The incredibly stylish visuals and sound of Voices are the first things that strike the viewer. Both the music and the cinematography are rich cocktails of influence and reference, calling back to historical and iconic pillars of black culture. The camerawork shifts between 1970s Blaxploitation-style stationary shots and slow zooms, to grainy video recorder footage reminiscent of 1990s New York hip-hop videos. The music is similarly kaleidoscopic. Ostensibly lo-fi hip hop, the soundtrack jumps from influence to influence, incorporating elements of soul and funk into the relaxed, joyful beats. These both place the film in a rich vein of culture, paying respect to the long history of black artistry and using that history to create something fresh and new.

What feels so vital and interesting about Voices is its sense of glory. The women featured in the film dance with power and purpose, expressing both individuality and heritage with a confidence that is magnificent and affecting. The choreography, much like the cinematography and music, pulls from a range of distinctly black styles and transforms them into something unique and new. The result is profoundly beautiful and adds layers of meaning to the film by accentuating the pride evident in the women’s words and representing an ineffable, non-verbal expression of life that fills the viewer with a kind of liberatory euphoria.

Voices succeeds in part because it represents the experiences and identities of black women in a way that never once feels trite. There is an underlying complexity to the feminine black experience, a paradoxical coexistence of pain and joy that Voices represents without being reductive or overly simplistic. The women, speaking in voiceover, are honest about their historical and personal pain, addressing it with the same tone of voice as they address their pride in being black women. There is no exploitation, no trite emotion, and this makes the film all the more moving. Voices allows all elements of the lives of these women to shine through unfiltered, representing the good alongside the bad, allowing them both room to breathe and to speak frank, clear truths that neither pander nor sugarcoat. Will Whitehead

A Problem

Tomasz Wolski, Poland, 2020

ext time you walk around a city, count how many people you pass by. It is a difficult thing to do, as our minds are rarely engaged with the space around us, focused instead on our destination, perhaps checking Google Maps, changing a song, or sending a WhatsApp – on my way!

The short opens in a park with a little girl dangling upside down. Although she occupies the shot for some time, there is no main character in this story. Instead, the camera moves from person to person like a disembodied needle threading them together. We move between a distracted mother, a bickering couple, and idle chit-chat until we finally see the centre of the knot that ties these individuals into a group, if only for a moment.

In A Problem, a normal afternoon gets disrupted, as passers-by are temporarily unhinged from their daily business by a man lying on the pavement. Who has time for a stranger when there are films to see, keys to find, and arguments to be had? Director, Tomasz Wolski, makes excellent use of the short film format to highlight our connections with those around us, as well as their absence, succinctly and effectively.

The camera lingers several times on someone recording the resuscitation on her phone. The presence of our fellow voyeur impacts how the paramedics work: even though the man is clearly, irreversibly dead, they use the defibrillator one more time “for the crowd”. This theatrical aspect seems at odds with the realism of the film.

What is perhaps most interesting about the dead body is its absence from the screen. Even when the paramedics arrive and attempt to resuscitate him, the deceased is pushed out of shot by the small crowd now gathered around. The focus here is clearly not the corpse, but the relations this creates between those who just so happen to be there in the same time and space.

The combination of the fly-on-the-wall filming style, the unforced script, and the natural performances of the actors give the impression that we are not watching fiction but, rather, are truly submerged within this moment. Perhaps this is the point: even what we may consider as the most natural actions in public are in fact heavily rehearsed and scripted.

The social relations are not only limited by spatial proximity: unsurprisingly, the scene is permeated by mobile phones. Although they certainly do curtail in-person interactions, they also provide useful connections. The dead man’s name and address is found almost instantly on a phone, in spite of the police officers’ mocking disapproval. His daughter is contacted while a takeaway, no doubt summoned via an app, is delivered in the background.

In this way, the film challenges perceptions of ‘the here and now’ by highlighting the network of social relations occurring in any space furnished with data coverage The crowd gathers, but not for long. The knot unravels as the onlookers drift away and back to their own personal banality. Truthfully, no one knows, or cares, about this dead man. As much as A Problem highlights our connections, it also showcases our isolation. Sally Roberts

Who’s Afraid of the Black Man? Simon Gabioud, Switzerland, 2020

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People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them,” James Baldwin wrote well over half a century ago in a small town in Switzerland. Decades later, we show no sign of waking from what he described as the ‘nightmare’ of history, as racially motivated violence and deeply rooted institutional racism continue to mar, and even take, the lives of many.

Who is Afraid of the Black Man? returns to Switzerland both in Baldwin’s time and in the present day. Interweaving archival footage of the famous writer and interviews with contemporary afro-feminist historian, Pamela Ohene-Nyako, Simon Gabioud’s film considers what it means to be black in a white-dominated world. One of the main strengths of this short is its relationship with the archives. The film is initially narrated by Baldwin but, at one point, Ohene-Nyako’s voice overlaps with his, reading along with him seventy years on from when he wrote Stranger in the Village. The intermingling of the two voices tied together by the same text is a highly effective way of showing their echoing experiences. Despite the decades between them, Ohene-Nyako’s narrative of growing up as a stranger in her own village bears some resemblance to Baldwin’s experience of being othered in Leukerbad. For instance, both Baldwin and Ohene-Nyako’s words evoke how black people do not have the same white privilege; that ‘the body, in this society, means nothing’ (Ohene-Nyako).

Baldwin, for example, is seen as ‘a living wonder’ rather than a human being, while Ohene Nyako discusses racially motivated police checks at train stations, airports, and customs – what writer and photographer Teju Cole calls “the supreme waste of time that is racism.” In this way, the archives are active voices that speak with the present, not historical relics to be admired from behind glass. As Cole puts it in his essay Black Body, this film is not necessarily thinking about Baldwin’s work but rather, ‘thinking with its help’.

This interaction with Stranger in the Village gives a hopeful glimmer of change amongst the evident repeated racism in both writers’ lives. Ohene-Nyako reads Baldwin’s words expressing his isolation from what he calls the ‘modern world’ formed by the white canon of “Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Aeschylus, Vinci, Rembrandt and Racine.” And yet here he is, now arguably a canonical figure himself, speaking with Ohene-Nyako, helping create new art that may facilitate a new kind of ‘modern world’.

The film ends with a clip of Baldwin walking through snowy streets that blends into Ohene-Nyako striding, confident and beautiful, towards a train station. This final suggestion of movement and new places seems to move on from Baldwin’s idea that we are trapped in the past and vice versa. The final image of the short does not show us where she is going, leaving us instead with a question: “Baldwin wrote Stranger in the Village more than sixty years ago. Now what?” (Cole). Sally Roberts