As a woman sits with crystals, trying to ascertain what they could bring into her life, the film paints a beautifully dreamy landscape, one that is constantly shifting, but forever maintaining the tonality and approach of the narrative. 


It talks of happiness, sadness, and courage, the words accompanied by the soft sounds of a trumpet and mandolin all along. The thoughts are presented as fragments collected from conversations and interviews, woven with this lovely musical reality. The narrative pronounces how more often than not change leads to something beautiful. 

The film presents its soulful interpretation of the many shades and whimsies of life, while staying true to the horizon of expectation regarding its form that is created in the title. It becomes a reality that is realised within the narratorial flow and progression itself, while also leaving the viewer with a celebratory sense of hope.

Open Form  | Short Film of the Month

The film is a hilarious and fully entertaining take on an unspoken rule of society, and how it comes to define an exchange between the protagonist and one of his friends. The question in the film’s title is what gets the ball rolling. The protagonist’s initial reply to it is commonplace and perfunctory…until it’s not. 

Next follows a barrage of truly terrible things that have happened to him in a short duration, ensuring that the caller, his friend on the other side, is caught off guard and completely unsure of what to say when someone replies to this mundane greeting in a manner out of the accepted norms. 

The thought thus presented is meaningful and honest, but it never becomes didactic or burdens the narrative. It also eschews needless frivolity. This ensures that the film keeps the viewer involved throughout, even if at the expense of the hapless protagonist.

How Are You?  | Short Film of the Month

The film opens during a crucial night in Lucy and Banks’ lives. After having worked at a diner for many years and harboured a deep hatred for its griminess and all things hellish that it stands for, tonight is the night they burn it down to the ground and head for the mountains. As they prepare to tie up the loose ends before starting the life that awaits them, the entry of an unexpected character changes everything. 
Montgomery has driven long hours, eventually crashing his rental car outside the diner, to at last have the meal he has looked forward to, and some more. The ensuing exchange is marked by a characteristic outlandishness that imbues the film with notable texture. The storytelling becomes metaphorical as it talks of burning down something that holds you back from an ideal, or in the case of Lucy and Banks, an idyllic life. While the fate of all three of them hangs in the balance, the film further comes to be defined by a seamless visual progression, expert performances, and unlikely moments of humor that only serve to accentuate the skill and tonality of the end result.

Danny's Diner  | Short Film of the Month

School principal Nina Valentinovna could not be prouder as she sits before an interviewer, sharing her thoughts for a news channel. She talks of her star pupil, Pyotr, a maths genius and a child with special needs. 

The principal extols her school’s values and how they train their students to always uphold them, while eschewing topics of conflict and social turbulence. However, as Valentinovna overlooks a crucial truth about the impact of a war and violence-ridden society on children, and how it translates into their own equations and dynamics, and instead only offers empty, clinical facts which might mean very little in the real world, another parallel reality is unfolding outside this interview. 

Young Max becomes a focal point in what follows, presenting a very incisive glimpse into how children operate within their spaces away from the adult world. A skilled screenplay that portrays this, coupled with expert performances that strengthen the film right till the very end, ensures that the narrative offers a hard-hitting commentary on innocence, and more shockingly, on the cruelty that can thrive within the same realm. The apathy of adults, or worse, their personal ambition mixed with casual indifference, further adds an emotional layer to the storytelling, all of which together present a story that is sure to stay with the viewer for a long time.

Crease  | Short Film of the Month

The film does a remarkable job of tying something as dark and disturbing as substance abuse and its many devastating consequences with the innocence of childhood and its fantasies. The story opens with the mingling of two very contrasting images in the same vein. 

Our young protagonist Samir plays with his toys, his voice overlapping with the sobbing of a woman, and the visuals of broken glass. His immediate reality is defined by alcoholism and substance abuse of his parents, and the consequent neglect that it leads to. 

The child is quick to take comfort in fantasies that the adult viewer knows will probably never come true. The film’s biggest triumph lies in how skillfully it portrays this contrast and paints a heartbreaking world by simply using a child’s perspective as its primary storytelling tool. The screenplay is constructed with equal care to ensure no beat or moment is left underutilized, driving its message home with impact and clarity.

Night Games | Short Film of the Month

The narrative introduces us to two lovers and a realm marked by separation, intimacy, and unmistakable vulnerability that ties it all together. The film and its namesake music album take audiences on a meaningful journey that is mapped and crafted with thoughtfulness and meticulous care. 

The several tracks taken from the same album conjure metaphors of love, relationships, heartbreak, acceptance, and loss. These are coupled with an intrinsic presence of nature, of thunder and lightning, of the vast expanses of the sea and the sky to further echo everything the narrative intends to convey. The rhythm of the music is tied to the emotional ups and downs of the protagonist, alongside being located within nature's many moods and hues, as if nature itself is the third character present alongside the lovers. 

The camerawork and the visuals it paints are equally and competently supported by the vocals that become an overarching, defining element of the film. The screenplay and the visual grammar employed are stunning not simply in terms of aesthetics but also the emotions they evoke. Consequently, the final result becomes a seamless union of skill and thought, with a deep authenticity of emotion and its expression.

What You Do Alone | Short Film of the Month

A misty, winter wasteland is the viewer’s first introduction to the film’s world. The image that it invokes is of a liminal space defined by its eeriness. It's further coupled with an intrinsic beauty that lends it a strangely atmospheric quality. Amidst it all is located an unnamed protagonist who is lost, and plagued by strange lights in the sky. As he attempts to find his way, the path only gets more and more mysterious and circuitous. 

The screenplay is beautiful in the construction of this space, alongside its two primary performances - our hapless, confused protagonist, and a woman’s presence in the center of a non-descript realm consumed by darkness all around her. Further, the title of the film is thoughtfully chosen - does it refer to a phone call? Does it refer to the strange space the protagonist is unable to make sense of? It serves to deliberately nestle these questions within the narrative. 

The establishment of the world is achieved with such impact that the short in its current form offers a premise for a longer film. It has all the right elements to capture the viewer’s attention. Taking us deeper into its world would help to expand on the narratorial construction which already presents deep potential, skill, and ease in everything that it wants to convey.

Holding Pattern  | Short Film of the Month

The many obstacles of dating in a realm defined by its explosion of colors become our first introduction to ‘Matinee Baby’. Unique and extremely entertaining in its storytelling and world-building, the film presents Robby and Noah-Lee, close friends and colleagues who work at Portland's historic Clinton Street Theater. As the narrative navigates modern-day dating, each potential suitor brings to life an experience more vivid and unexpected than the previous. 
The many complexities of all of these encounters are handled with effortless ease in this queer romantic comedy. The humor remains seamless, roping in campiness while eschewing its many dangers, supported by the performances and the screenplay, both of which exhibit control and skill. 
With the film’s heart in the right place, the story and characters stand firmly on their feet. At no point do the colors, the comedy or the overall end result of the world become overbearing enough to subdue the voices within, presenting to the viewer the film's true triumph.

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