The music video triggers several ideas to pace through your mind while trying to truly comprehend the visuals on screen. The palette is cool, the colours minimal and the location stunning. It is seemingly the story of a protagonist and his relationship with a horse. There is a surreal, otherworldly, abstract emotion that can be associated with the whole video, only further supplemented by its mesmerising and closely controlled vocals. The writing and the visuals exhibit a sophisticated weaving together, with not even a single extra moment wasted on either. The narrative takes its time to build, and yet does not under-utilise any component or element to put forth its message. Both the video and the song are essentially about power, race and the colour of the skin perhaps. It is a reminder to not trivialise someone's well-directed anger and emotion and simply render their discontent a "lover's quarrel". The lyrics demand an equality which seems to be missing when a disagreement is defined in this manner, hinting that it is one of equals. However, how can it be a conversation of equals if even the mere presence of this discrimination is brushed aside? The video raises this question in a poignant manner and leaves the viewer grappling with its potential answers.

Quarrel | Short Film of the Day

There is no dearth of content on gender which is why choosing it as a predominant theme of your short film also exposes one to the danger of it being threadbare. Hold Your Breath, fortunately, steers clear of this trap and instead provides a convincing and needfully disconcerting account of a date gone wrong. The film opens with a girl arriving at the house of a boy she is meeting in person for the first time. Her unease and caution, which accompanies the visit to a stranger's house, is clear for she has chosen bring her best friend along. The situation, which unwittingly turns into a double date of sorts, also helps to accentuate the contrast between how men and women approach the same situation - one of rejection of sexual advances. The film does a notable job of capturing the nuances and subtleties of gender dynamics without giving in to voyeurism or sentimentalism. On the whole, it becomes a poignant comment on sexual abuse and molestation, reminding the viewer that it's more rampant and normalised than we allow ourselves to believe.

Hold Your Breath | Short Film of the Day

The documentary has a difficult premise - the nexus of art and war. However it achieves the most brilliant execution for it because what is war if not simply a dance between soldiers and civilians (as the film itself goes ahead to portray in one of its sequences). Exit 12 is about a dance company of the same name founded and now run by people most intricately connected with different wars the US has been part of over the last few decades. From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, there is a glimpse into what they did to those who either fought in them at the front or participated as family members and loved ones of those who were in the line of fire. The dance sequences are weaved most effortlessly into the narrative. Other than being a display of exceptional skill and seamless visuals, they further succeed in delivering their bit of the story most poignantly. Using these, the film follows the experiences of three characters and how they use dance to make sense of their post-war reality. At the heart of the narrative is a moving question - when you are trained to kill, how do you come back and embrace your reality as a human? How does one reconcile the horrors of war with their day-to-day existence? Consequently, without spelling anything out explicitly, the film becomes an engagement with the post traumatic stress disorders veterans grapple with. Mental health and the desire to end one's own life find echoes for the viewer that are loud and clear. However, despite it all, there is a sense of hope and empowerment which is invoked at the idea of people coming together as a collective to share their experiences in an attempt to successfully assuage their pain. It is this idea of hope which finally ties the film together in a cohesive and comprehensive way allowing the intense emotional experience to be moving in a constructive manner.

Exit 12 | Short Film of the Day

The short film is a skilfully disconcerting exploration of maternal love and the disturbing manner in which it tears a family apart. It opens with a grim shot of a red-cheeked child in a coffin, invoking a sense of morbidity that would come to haunt the entirety of the narrative. Unable to let go of their dead son, the couple finds itself making their way to a doll-maker. The latter can briefly make them forget about the death of their son, with a fair warning to never let the illusion overpower their sense of reality. As a horror story would have it, the characters of course overlook the warning, or find themselves incapable of paying heed to it, leading to dire consequences. The Dollmaker is a deeply engaging story, sure to satisfy admirers of horror and otherwise. Albeit not entirely fresh, it is an interesting and engaging comment on the indomitable human desire to bring someone back from the dead and to seek transitory relief, as illusory as it might be, from loss and pain, even at the cost of complete self-annihilation.

The Dollmaker | Short Film of the Day

The question at the heart of the film is what is the price you are willing to pay for your freedom, to not cower in shadows but unequivocally assert who you really are, and eventually live a life of acceptance, love, and hope? The answer to this is also beautifully and seamlessly nestled within the film as it introduces us to Sasha Smirnov, a Russian gay man who had to leave his country when his sexual identity became a direct threat to his life and safety. 

In Sasha, we see a man who has built a life from scratch in the US, a country far, far away from home. He is the most fitting subject to tell a story of resilience, hope, one of surmounting tremendous adversity, and yet, never losing the ability to put one foot in front of the other, to always look to the future and all the potential it holds. In the protagonist, we see the inimitable and rare combination of vulnerability and fierceness. Sasha is unmissable in the sense of hope he conjures on screen, while always being fully aware of the past, and how burdensome it can become sometimes. 
The narrative-building and storytelling of the film are compelling and skilled, alongside being notably efficient in introducing the viewer to its protagonist. It is clear in the articulation of all its intentions, and in presenting a story that is not only heartfelt and meaningful but also a well-balanced combination of self-affirmation and vulnerability, and the loud and emphatic assertion of never giving up on the hope of a better tomorrow.

At Home Among Strangers | Spotlight

The film opens on a lovely, light-hearted note, completely beguiling and leaving the viewer unprepared for the sinister plot developments that await them at the most unexpected corner. The laughter and giggles soon give way to an awkward unease that come to constitute the power dynamics of three teenaged girls. There is a suggestion of the threats that girls alone at night are left vulnerable to in a patriarchal set-up where their identities are often reduced to their sexuality. This is presented to the viewer in the form of three young men they soon encounter. However, the plot still continues to revolve around the discomfort that is growing among the girls, alongside the thrill and excitement of breaking a few rules - all three parties unequal participants in these emotions. The narrative manages to invoke a powerful delineation of the concern of a girl who is insecure and worried about her friend as well as the arrival of a new member that potentially threatens to shake the security of their duo. The plot finally comes to revolve around a single decision that would change their lives forever. It is perhaps also a remote comment on how, along with patriarchy, young women themselves can hurt each other while being preoccupied with a sense of competition with each other that society has conditioned them to internalise. There is also a reminder of the recklessness of teenage life which might result in rash decisions, while not always conveying at first the gravity of the consequences they are capable of leading to.

Night Swim | Short Film of the Day

This 2D, hand-drawn animation by Pixar is a wonderful union of two very disparate characters and how they finally find a common ground for companionship. The film is an exploration of instinctive distrust we often inculcate within ourselves without realising it. This is coupled with an engagement with vulnerability as well as unexpected friendships. Along with it all, the film also gives a glimpse into animal abuse, while effortlessly busting myths about pit bulls being dangerously aggressive. The story is of a kitten and a pit bull, the former extremely apprehensive of the latter in the face of all his attempts for them to be friends. It is finally an act of kindness that brings them together and thus begins a deeply endearing tale of the two overcoming the obstacles in their respective paths. There is fearlessness and trust that the characters find in themselves, aided by each other in the most heartwarming ways. And it is in overcoming these internal hurdles that their true victory lies, suggests the narrative with its conclusion.

Kitbull | Pixar | Short Film of the Day

The film exploits its economy of dialogues to a huge extent and disturbs the viewer deeply in the process. Reminding you once again that supernatural is not always important to invoke a deep sense of horror and chills that run down your spine, threatening to consume your being, the film instead employs the darkness of the human mind. It simply rides on objects found in any average household - sewing pins and brooches - to terrify the viewer. There is no direct act of overt violence, mind you, beyond the image of a man tied to a bed. There is also no ostentatious camerawork or gimmicky plot devices to hook the viewer to the narrative. However, what the film achieves is something far deeper and darker. It shows the complete collapse of a familial space, a structure we are traditionally conditioned to see as a source of warmth and safety. It drives its characters to points of selfish acts from where there is no return in the name of preserving their lives. Based on a true story of a woman who had harmed her family in a similar fashion as the protagonist of the film, Nose Nose Nose Eyes is the stuff of nightmare even fans of horror were too scared to ask for, but were rewarded with it anyway.

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