Shorts have a challenge: in a short amount of time they have to set up a story or concept which immediately grabs your attention and Paradox is able to do that very well. A man wakes up at the bottom of a well and sees another man there. The two start a conversation and they quickly find out that they are both from different time periods. The question is who of the two is right? Continue reading
Ellis Island, New York. A deserted, slowly decaying building in which the paint is peeling away from the surface seems to be way past its former glory. But this place, on this island is important, because its the spot from which most of America was populated. It’s the place where millions of Europeans, from various countries, arrived after a long journey by boat, hoping to start a new life and making the American dream a reality. These were people who left everything they cared about behind and faced an uncertain future. Ellis is the story of one of these people and tries to make this place on Ellis Island come alive again. Continue reading
Ever since I saw the hilarious/absurd/shocking, Oscar-nominated Rejected (you can check it out on Youtube) by Don Hertzfeldt, I was a fan of both his animation style and his humour. When I heard earlier this year that he had made a new short I was curious about it. His drawings might be considered simple, but he always succeeds in getting his intention across. For this short, it’s 17 minutes, he recorded conversations he had with his 4-year-old niece, Winona Mae and used these for a story about an impressive journey to the future. Continue reading
The Cannes film festival always is an important event. It isn’t only used for promotion, but also to sell movies to distributors to make sure they are viewed by a wider audience. This isn’t only the case for feature films, but also for short movies. Earlier this year Reflection was shown in the short film corner. Even though I wasn’t there I did get a chance to check it out. Continue reading
I regularly get requests from various (new) directors who have made a movie and ask me if I would be interested in reviewing it. Through the years I’ve learned to be very careful accepting as generally the quality usually is pretty low and it is just a bit harder to write something negative when you feel the hope and the belief in their product and you know you’ll have to hurt that a bit. I recently received a request to review The Cobblestone Corridor, directed by Erik Bloomquist. I decided to check out the trailer for his movie and it had me intrigued. Not only because the story looked interesting, but also because it looked very polished. I had a bit of hope that this short movie actually was worth watching. Continue reading
Recently a friend of mine suggested I checked out a short called Record/Play. It is only 11 minutes, but well worth your time. I like its minimalistic approach and the concept behind it. You can check it out below:
RECORD/PLAY from jesse atlas on Vimeo.
This week’s question:
What’s a short you think others should check out?