Plethora of Pleasurable Pictures

📅 This Week on Short of the Week

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I kicked off the week by reviewing Troy, from celebrated theater talents director Mike Donahue and writer Jen Silverman. Their skills translate to film quite well, and the film starts with a quickly paced 5min comedic montage that had me in stitches. But, it is the unexpected heart shown in this New York-set comedy that elevates the Tribeca and Sundance selection.

Then Rob covers the notable Les Larmes de la Seine from students at the French school Piktura (formerly Pôle 3d). Tackling the Paris Massacre of 1961, this unusually accomplished student film was a massive festival hit, winning awards at SXSW, Clermont, Ottawa, and Best in Show at SIGGRAPH.

Then Rob recommends an unusual piece from the Polish filmmaker Katarzyna Gondek. Shot with a broken lens in a haze of cigarette smoke, the filmmaker, fresh off a breakup and quitting smoking herself, “turns her lens onto two of her friends and captures their relationship with startling authenticity. It’s a warts-and-all depiction of a relationship and many will find that too much and crave the comfort of a slick Hollywood romance instead.”

Finally, Céline welcomes back Andrew Fitzgerald to Short of the Week with his latest Sundance short. Andrew’s I Know You From Somewhere won our Short of the Year award in 2018 and I consider it one of the great shorts of the past 10 years. This one is a much different film but is similarly slippery to categorize as Céline calls it a “film noir” that blends “family drama, thriller, and hints of comedy” as well.

🏆 Awards Watch: The European Film Award Nominees

Staking out territory as the earliest of the major film accolades, the European Film Awards will be handed out this December in Berlin. Yesterday, they announced the first of the nominees, which includes the 5 films up for “Best European Short Film” — the sole short film category awarded.

We’ve seen most of these, and I’ve linked to their Shortverse pages below where you can learn more about the films and watch their trailers. It’s a well-rounded selection and, while I’m sad that it restricts the total number of shorts recognized, I like how docs, animated, and live-action shorts compete on an even footing.

The animated doc Granny’s Sexual Life (available to watch) was the winner last year, and Flóra Anna Buda’s animated short 27 must be considered the favorite this year after a phenomenal run that has seen it win the Palme at Cannes and the Cristal at Annecy.

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27 - Flóra Anna Buda (France/Hungary)

Aqueronte - Manuel Muñoz Rivas (Spain)

Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays (La herida luminosa) - Christian Avilés (Spain)

Flores del otro patio - Jorge Cadena (Switzerland/Colombia)

Hardly Working - Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) (Austria)

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Check out more European Film Award shorts on its Shortverse Festival Page

🍿 New releases you’ve been enjoying…

A pair of shorts getting strong reviews on Shortverse. First, an animated short to get you into the mood for spooky season, then, a stylish and interesting mid-length psychological thriller that I would describe as “a fashion-filmmaker directs a mumblecore horror”.

💡 Product Updates

🔍 New & Improved Browsing

Yup, your portal for filtered discovery Shortverse has gotten a facelift. It’s now supa fast, with easy-to-read, big search-friendly titles. Works across films, people, and festivals. You gotta try it.

🎭 Culture Recommend: Scavengers Reign

Scavengers Reign dropped on the streaming service Max yesterday with three episodes to start and we highly recommend it! From the description: After their deep-space freighter is damaged, the stranded crew of the Demeter must fight to survive on a beautiful yet dangerous planet.

We’re, of course, big animation fans here and very much want to see American companies take on animation projects that are “mature” not just “adult”. Therefore the sort of imaginative sci-fi that Scavengers Reign promises is very much up our alley.

But, it’s also from a bunch of artists we love and admire, as the series is an adaptation of the 2017 S/W pick, Scavengers, directed by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner. Joseph and Charles are back to spearhead the 12-episode series as is Sean Buckelew, who writes and produces through his Green Street Pictures.

If our affection for the talent makes us biased, the early reviews are effusive too. The Verge says “…it might be the most original piece of science fiction of the year.” Collider writes, “…Scavengers Reign creates something as utterly spectacular as it is sublime,” and the NYTimes says it is “…truly otherworldly”.

So give it a watch this weekend and, if you want to dive deep, check out these links where the team talks through the show’s world-building for Cartoon Brew and sits down with Skwigly, in a recent podcast.