He runs the film... Often considered as the unmanageable step of any director to move to the long form, the short film is more than a springboard, it is a form in its own right where narration must immediately strike the spectator through the image and/or the words. We offer you a small overview of the shorts that have marked us in the genre festivals at NIFFF as at FEFFS, on ShadowZ, Mubi or Arte! An ideal menu to sniff the filmmakers of tomorrow and spend a Halloween full of thrills! And for the greediest, don't hesitate to go (re)view our selection from last year!
Contents
The Cost of Flesh
Source France | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Tomas Palombi <span content Production : | Duration : 10 min.
From Mecca du Fantastique, the Fantasia festival, the Tribeca Film Festival or the FEFFS, Tomas Palombi's film, The Cost of Flesh has won prizes wherever it was broadcast. It must be said that between its epidermal graphic patina and its elegant black and white photograph, the film has serious assets to please. But it's not only for its plastic qualities that you need to see that costs The Cost of Flesh, it is rather for its bold realization, the story being revealed exclusively in the hollow of the retina by a subtle reverberation game and a single sequence plane. Between sequestration and satanistic ritual, one no longer really knows who to trust and finds oneself riveted on the incessant eye movements of Alice, a young teenager. A formal prowess that inspires us confidence in the real feature film project! To see urgently at the next fantastic festival near you or as soon as it will be broadcast on platform! Case to follow...
...by KillerS7ven
Bill Plympton : sex and violence
Source : USA | Release date : 1999 | Where to see the movie? MUBI
Implementation : Bill Plympton | Duration 8 minutes.
8 minutes of mini-courts with the theme: sex and violence. We are still far from the horror, but Plympton has an incredible gift to chew in a handful of seconds a croquignolesque situation, introduced by a brief sentence: « a very good fuck », « a person with confused priorities », « a new extreme sport »... His dry trait, almost scrutinized, his caricatural characters, his noises contribute to creating a comic atmosphere, supported by the unexpected turns that take on a narrative constantly marked by nihilism and sexual impulses. We were just talking about Suzan Pitt, here is another genius cartoonist to discover thanks to several simultaneous releases of MUBI. To consume without moderation!
...by Mr. Wilkes
Autophagy
Source United Kingdom| Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Edie Lawrence | Duration : 11 min
A traditional stop-motion film, Autophagy d Curious pandemic that plays the strange card to take away its spectator. Just 11 minutes to simmer with sea air. Nice success with some gore-guignolesque scenes. Simple and efficient!
...by KillerS7ven
Pizza Panic Party
Source : USA | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Shadowz
Implementation : Graham Denam | Production : Gorgazma | Duration : 10 min.
Mini shorts, neons fluos and synths, no doubt we're in the nighties. And these four teens are planning a good pizza evening... Evilly, they had to order it in a new establishment in the city: what awaits them is definitely worse than a small food poisoning. Resolutely gore, Pizza Panic Party never exceeds its concept (four chicks in a room and a demonic entity blooming good mozzarella) but will do it devilishly well. Practical effects of hell for this kind of production and duration (9 min top time) perfect for what he has to deliver, a short in the form of a gorrific comedy decidedly fun for a successful Halloween evening.
...by Mr. Wilkes
The Fence
Source Spain | Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Sam Orti | Duration : 15 min
Not so long ago, textbooks taught that the fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized the end of an era. More than thirty years later, the walls have never been so numerous among nations: in Mexico, Gaza, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.. The walls by definition are the object of a territorial separation, a separation which finds another grim coloration between the dead and the living in The Fence. A film honours all those whose dream of another world turns into a nightmare. Powerful, efficient and bathed in the sun, The Fence marries black humour with the horror of reality. Cloths used to reproduce the guenilles of refugees fly and give contrast to the pate to be modeled. A very good pick!
...by KillerS7ven
Faces of Death
Source : Germany / Austria | Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Jan Soldat | Production : Sixpack films | Duration 7 minutes.
7 minutes from Christopher Lee dying in the movies. Incongru, poetic, touching, the short focuses on the monstrous career of this seventh art giant. Submitted to NIFFF, this tribute was as surprising to the audience as it was to make him hilarious by his comic rehearsal (and reminded us that any great actor he was, he had played in a hell of a bunch of bad movies).
...by Mr. Wilkes
Bayoneted!
Source France | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Thomas Dahirel | Duration : 10 min.
Submitted to the FEFFS, Bayoneted! made us laugh at tears. In the middle of a trench war, a brave soldier finds himself impaled by a bayonet that hangs (you were told not to let her hang out). As he makes his last breath in the arms of his friend, against all expectations, the rogue rises and goes to tell his wife about his death. But does he have a wife? Highly grotesque, Bayoneted! is hilarious. A mix between One day without end and a cartoon of the film We need to save Private Ryan. To be seen urgently!
...by KillerS7ven
Sweet Juices
Source Australia | Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? Shadowz
Implementation : Will Suen | Duration 15 minutes.
Shirong and Tony may be thrown at the door. Yet they rely on their (subtil) culinary art to get out of the panade. You thought you'd have to ruin yourself in Weightwatchers programs to lose some stuff? Only nenni! Sweet Juices This will be done much more effectively. Photo yellowish, slightly stewing sound design (euphemism) and wide-angle to make pale Yorgos LanthimosThe short film draws a hagiography of big food. Gross, ultra-inventive and barred to wish, a short ideal for a Halloween evening in forced diet mode.
...by Mr. Wilkes
Vivarium
Source Netherlands| Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? TBA
Implementation : Daan Lucas | Duration 9 minutes.
Fantasia Would he have traumatized an entire generation of children in the 1990s? With its old school animation and remarkable stage entry, Vivarium manages to take the spectator into his acidic trip. In an imaginary country, a sudden shower causes flooding. Two stamens of a voluptuous flower go to adventure... A very nice short film that sparkles ideas all more original each other. Just the trailer is already the guarantee of a nice trip!
...by KillerS7ven
Duck
Source : Switzerland, Belgium | Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? Shadowz
Implementation : Elie Chapuis | Duration 9 minutes.
A couple raise ducks in the country. The child they're waiting for is going to take a rather unexpected shape... Singling short animation, between the psychoanalytic pan of Beautiful is Afrid (and cinemaAster and the nightmare of Lamb, it offers in less than ten minutes of stop-motion a palette of rather hallucinating horror visions. It is the Swiss host Elie Chapuis who is behind this project, he who collaborated on the animated projects of Wes Anderson (Dog Island) and Claude Barras (My Life of Courgette and the very recent Wild) in particular continues to develop in parallel its personal projects. Case to follow closely!
...by Mr. Wilkes
Sabat Mater
Source France | Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Hadrian Maton, Quentin Wittevrongel, Arnaud Mege, Coline Thelliez and William Defrance | Duration 14 minutes.
Happy Synopsis for Depressive Film, which you will be allowed to judge on piece: « He stood, in pain, by the rope, in tears, while his creator was suspended. » End of study film, Sabat Mater takes the viewer into a macabre waltz, a poetic reflection on mourning and suicide. In his workshop, a proven article, completes his work and prepares to commit suicide. The work and artist overlap, the camera wraps up and the screen divides to better show the parallel between the creature and its creator. Despite a few technical flaws that will be readily forgiven, the film is imaginative to renew a sick theme. Who owns the other?
...by KillerS7ven
Never have I ever
Source Lebanon | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Joyce A. Nashawati | Duration 19 minutes.
Fully filmed in the first person, Never have I ever adopts a staging chiseled in the pure tradition of immersive video games. Joyce A. Nashawati invites us here to put ourselves in the skin of a person kidnapped and tied in the trunk of a car. We follow step by step the girl's ordeal... Like we were there. True prowess of staging, the film was made in a single apparent sequence plane even if we smear some almost invisible cuts with the naked eye. Hat down! Beyond the technical performance, we immediately become contaminated by the torpor that wins the young captive. A clever film that would gain to reproduce this process for a feature film and why not in VR! This was our choice challenger at the FEFFS with The Cost of Flesh !
...by KillerS7ven
Gnomes
Source Netherlands | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Ruwan Sureh Heggelman | Duration 6 minutes.
Designed as a guignolesque rereading of the trip to Lilliput macabre sauce, Gnomes is full of small budget staging ideas. During a morning outing, a jogger accidentally discovers light mushrooms that lead him straight into the wolf's mouth: gnomes that are determined to shoot the giant! Funny and stupid, Gnome seduced us at the FEFFS for his offbeat tone bathed in hemoglobin! We understand better why mushroom spots are a fiercely defended secret!
...by KillerS7ven
Meat Puppet
Source : England | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Broadcast on Canal+ Movie(s) for Halloween | Implementation : Eros V | Duration 12 minutes.
Oz is incapable of being responsible, and it definitely doesn't like his girlfriend. Even on the day of graduation, he manages to be distracted by the delivery of a strange package. The latter contains a trap that will try to put him back on the right path... We will no longer say as much as this completely barred short film should be discovered as blank as possible of any information. Proposed in the short selections of the NIFFF and FEFFS This little jewel of black English humour manages to be hilarious as well as touching. And it takes a certain amount of skill to achieve this in just 12 minutes, without neglecting his image. Eros VA young director to follow...
...by Mr. Wilkes
Him
Source France | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Matthias Couquet | Duration : 10 min.
Simple. Basic. He from Matthias Couquet recalls that a good short can often be due to a well-linked pitch. François has an appointment in a café with his friend Pierre. Persecuted by a strange appearance following him, Peter is convinced that his days are numbered. Between paranoia and oppression, the spectator links himself with his damned hero. A very good short coupled with a convincing game of actors.
...by KillerS7ven
Green porn
Source : USA | Release date : 2009 | Where to see the movie? MUBI
Implementation : Isabella Rossellini, Jody Shapiro | Duration : usually a few minutes
Greatness Isabella Rossellini (who we adore especially in Blue Velvet or more recently in Marcel the shell) gives us sex education classes of animals by putting themselves in the skin of these same bugs. This is a farfetched idea that gives birth to a tripotée of really short shorts (a few minutes), where Rossellini grimes in bees, shrimp, deer or hamster tells us the naughtyness of these bebeasts. Barred and educational at the same time, from shorts to advice for Halloween to those who are not especially fond of tripails and hemoglobins. A series of shorts on MUBI, accompanied by other short films by actress.
...by Mr. Wilkes
Chew
Source France | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Felix Dobaire | Duration 21 minutes.
Teenage passion sometimes leads to disaster. This is the lesson that could be learned from Chew, presented to the FEFFS this year. On a Saturday night, Celeste, 13, invites herself to the well-watered feast of her big sister. Very quickly, the evening turns into horror for a dark chewing gum affair. Felix Dobaire recalls here that the fantastic is a matter... elastic! A very nice atmosphere thanks to a casting of explosive actors.
...by KillerS7ven
Blood Links
Source France | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Hakim Atoui | Duration 19 minutes.
The ties of blood were rooted in the Made in France competition of the film costs presented at the FEFFS, first for his crazy humour. During a lunch, Ali and Leila discover, interlocked, that their mother now lives with an android somewhat... disturbing. With his face Marlon-branded with the protruding jaw and the features overly magnified by the magic of the chewed paper, this good old Elmo didn't look very clear. As the meal turns to carabinated account settlement, the robot decides to set foot in the dish. You can laugh at everything but not with everyone... And much less with a robot...
...by KillerS7ven
Real
Source French | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festival
Implementation : Rodrigue Huart | Duration Five minutes.
1857: Two peasant women discover a smartphone by working in their fields. Their find quickly turns into a dispute. Then the fight to violence. Filmed entirely in selfie mode, this short film takes the form of a joke questioning us about our own vanity. Fun, staggered and formally quite interesting (including his work on his vertical format), Real comes right after Transylvania in Rodrigue Huart's career, the latter having been rewarded at Gerardmer.
Girls
Source France | Release date : 2024 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Paul Guédon | Duration 2 min
If you also eat popcorn at each « controversy » summer on the burkini, no doubt this transgressive short is made for you. A pure film course in all its splendour that in just two minutes succeeds in convincing. In front of her mirror, a young burned woman is about to leave her home in burka. A film that plays with subversion and our relationship to appearances... often misleading...
...by KillerS7ven
Afterwork
Source Spain, Peru, Ecuador | Release date : 2017 | Where to see the movie? ShadowZ, Vimeo | Implementation Luis Uson and Andres Aguilar | Duration : 6 minutes
Humor is still in the spotlight with Afterwork. « Work is health » as does not stop repeating your grandmother at every family meal. An old frelate adage put to the test by this film course which shows us upside down from the decor of the cartoons. What do our favorite mascots do after a day of shooting? By juggling between styles and by a subtle perspective game, Afterwork Tap in the mile with an asserted cynicism.
...by KillerS7ven
Bestia
Source Chile | Release date : 2021 | Where to see the movie? ShadowZ | Implementation : Hugo Covarrubias | Duration 16 minutes.
Film punch of this selection, Bestia denounces the life of the one that was nicknamed « the wife of dogs ». Íngrid Felicitas Olderöck Benhard was a carabiner in Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet (1973-1990) and a profound admirer of the Nazis. Choosing to deal frontally with a long taboo subject, the sexual torture inflicted by dogs on opponents of the regime, Hugo Covarrubias breaks the ice of silence with intelligence. Ingrid is represented in porcelain to represent the coldness of an ordinary monster that we follow daily to its most sordid intimacy. Blinded graphic ideas, including that of the black sky that Glazer repeated in The Interest Area, Bestia is a remarkable film! Despite its atypical subject, the film reminds us that this type of sexual torture is not the prerogative of Chile. During the war in Algeria as in Abu Ghraib yesterday and today in the Israeli jails, this macabre heritage continues in the shadows.
...by KillerS7ven
Stuff
Source Norway | Release date : 2019 | Where to see the movie? ShadowZ | Implementation : Robin Jensen, Henriette Steenstrup and John Brungot | Duration 11 minutes.
Friends of the absurd, hello, Stuff Check all the boxes of the strange. With its naive style, one immediately guesses that there is an eel under rock or that there is a ball in the pâté to speak more crûment. Stuff will make you like meat (or not). Of course, this disturbed animation film oscillates between The Republic of Salo, The Great Food and Eyes Wide Shut in accelerated version (and sour), as if their directors had drunken on a summer evening during a banquet that would have gone wrong.
...by KillerS7ven
Yemen
Source : Argentine | Release date : 2023 | Where to see the movie? Festivals
Implementation : Ana Cecilia Estrabou | Duration : 5 minutes
When funds are limited, animation is sometimes an ungrateful profession. In the past, it was necessary to use subterfuges or patience to produce a faltered film. Today, technical progress helps, the AI can act as a support on which to build. Made with two francs six sous, Yemen belongs to this category. As in Annecy where the first animation films using the AI start to infiltrate the selections. For the time being, it's as if we're rather refractory. If we hear the opening of the means of production to a whole group of people wider than traditional artists, we remain much more critical of the threat to all the artisans in the sector.
As long as there is no dedicated section in festivals, the reactions may be mixed. Here Ana Cecilia Estrabou has integrated the technical limits of the AI in motion (for how much longer?) based on fixed planes and whose foot Midjourney is immediately recognized. And that's the problem, because Midjourney now tends to smooth and homogenize all productions. However, Ana Cecila Estrabou offers a kind of travel diary like polaroid clichés of a life between an alien and a human. Trapped by his narration, Yemen works even if we regret the ease of the device compared to other productions of the selection.
...by KillerS7ven
Cool thanks for these recommendations!