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

Stunning visuals of the limitless outdoors - snowclad mountain peaks in all their glory, oceans with water stretching out as far as the eye can see, and cloudy skies that remain forever moving - bring to life this beautiful narrative about change being the only constant. 

The images of nature are interweaved with the fluidity of the human body, suggesting internal struggles and the inability of things to stay still. The choreographed visuals are brief but seamless and expert, allowing the two components, nature and humans, to come together as a composite whole. The end result is crafted with care, is meaningful in its beauty, and perhaps can be explored as a longer project in the future.

Life is Movement | Short Film of the Day

The complexity of some experiences demand more than one medium for an expression. The short film is clear evidence of the same proposition as it ropes in poetry, dance, and the written word itself which forms the body of the narration. In addition to this, it includes a performance that suddenly finds itself in a place in direct contrast with all the lyricism, vastness of setting, and fluidity expressed so far - the confines of a drab corner, marked by its pale greys, where two people sit discussing a letter. The entirety of the narrative becomes a movement predominantly towards this moment in time, one that stands for not only a conflicted relationship between a son and his mother at a microcosmic level, but also the experience of understanding your identity. The idea of home and belonging, and what it truly means to have the same tied to the identity of your parents, or more specifically, as the title suggests, a mother, then becomes the concern at a more macrocosmic level. The film exhibits sophistication in its forward motion, as each of these thoughts is brought to life on screen, allowing the plot a cohesive structure. In the process, it further enables the narrative to share its intentions with an emphatic clarity while coupled with a surreal flow of images all along that more than fulfil their aim of communicating the meaning behind them.

Mother/Land | Short Film of the Day

The title of the music video suggests a sense of being present, of truly living in the current moment, and yet the visuals invoke a far different story. It is in this inherent contrast that the plot comes into being, introducing the viewer to the protagonist's struggle of overcoming the chaos within.

 The visual treatment of these intentions is further marked by the creative flow of bodily movements, of employing dance to communicate the sentiment that defines the narrative. When it is coupled with soft vocals of the song, the final result is an engrossing story of a woman's relentless efforts to conquer the several elements that threaten to pull her back. As she wages a battle against all her internal demons, those that keep her from being in the present, to eventually be able to move on, Nowness makes its intentions clear. 

 Employing all of it as a notable metaphor, the video communicates to the viewer the overwhelming power of inhibitions imposed on the self as a result of the wrongs, pain and perhaps even trauma of the past, and yet, the constant fight against them, especially in a world that is only beginning to come out of a pandemic, further serving as a reminder of an insurmountable sense of hope.

Nowness | Short Film of the Day

Boundaries is a mingling of dance and music in order to allow an emotional expression that transcends the many limitations that can sometimes plague verbal communication. As the film introduces you to Cristina Teresa Hall, a world renowned flamenco dancer, it invokes a conversation on the myriad elements that inhabit the emotional, mental, and sometimes, even the creative space, only to find articulation in the fluidity of physical movement. 

Locating itself within the symmetry of the Saint Joseph's Art Society, in San Francisco, USA, the video offers the portrayal of a mood that is marked by a notable resonance in a world where a pandemic redefined for us what it meant to hurt, drown in despair, and yet, overcome it to find hope all over again. 

 It is precisely when you may have been convinced that now the body is exhausted and lies at rest, it rises again, to the beat of the music, following the same rhythm it had learnt to follow all along. 

In the process, the video shares its intentions equipped with a judicious employment of metaphors and symbolism that, in turn, enable it to offer a cohesive, comprehensive narrative to the viewer.

Boundaries | Short Film of the Day

Women are often confined to a space of domesticity that deprives them of agency, aspirations, desires and so much more without ever explicitly putting them in shackles. However, these restraints, metaphorical as they might be, are no less at controlling and altering the entire course of their lives. Additionally, when a conversation is desired around the same shackles and restraints that accompany this forced idea of domesticity for women, what better physical space than that of a kitchen? The short film employs these very tools of oppression to talk about the location of women in a patriarchal society where their entire existence is defined by the men in their lives. The narrative brings in an added layer of a traditional dance form to express all of these concerns. The fluid movements of the dancers before you keeps the story tight and impactful, without falling in the trap of monotony or repetition to discuss its thematic concerns. Each performance exhibits grace and elegance, ensuring that the film's message is successfully communicated to the audience, further allowing its premise a fulfilling conclusion.

The Kitchen | Short Film Nominee

The single-take visual narrative of Kindred Bodies takes us into an otherworldly, idyllic space marked by its lush green. At the centre of this ethereal location, rest two characters, perhaps a forest nymph and satyr. And yet, as the narrative introduces them further, the message they seem to convey is very much of this world, about the emotional realities of the two characters who stand as metaphors for the emotions and individual experiences of any and all viewers finding an echo in their movement. 

 The fluidity of the dance, marked by the lithe and sophisticated flow of the bodies, serves to portray a realm where emotions are allowed a free and open expression. No longer denied or garbed under expectations or forced protocols of imagined decorum, it is in this space of wilderness that two people find a way to truly communicate to each other. 

 The film exhibits a notable employment of elegant movement, doing justice to the performance before us. It further allows the camerawork to utilize the space, and the action that unfolds within it, a dedicated and worthy delineation for the viewer to interact with. While a more static approach would have been the less risky option, it would have been less enriching as well, and the final result goes ahead to prove that.

Kindred Bodies | Short Film Nominee

Allow a spectacular splash of pinks, magentas and violets to take you down the memory lane of the eighties. Borrowing its aesthetic and approach to storytelling from the past era, Hey Babe becomes a sweet offering that presents a glimpse into some notable moments of dance, music and the artistic ambience the time period eventually came to be associated with. 

 Introducing us to the life of a young woman, and mapping her journey from rejection in love to immense professional success, the music video portrays it all, all along maintaining its fidelity to the aesthetic established so far. The lovely palette of the visuals is especially welcomed in a world marked by the grim reality of a pandemic that ensured bleakness threatened to consume the horizon of creativity. 

 Consequently, the melodious sound and the atmosphere conjured by the final result acquires the status of an uplifting piece, in turn, providing for the viewer a spirited moment of cheeriness, lasting in the impressions and images it leaves them with.

Hey Babe | Short Film Nominee

The short narrative is an attempt to invoke hope by employing the image of the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Supplementing it are minimalist visuals, but not devoid of their bright lights and the sparkle of the protagonist's costume. The lithe movements of a dancer are further enforced to articulate and delineate the message for the viewer. 

 As the protagonist lies in a hospital bed, a physical space in direct contrast with the aforementioned brightness, austere and drab in its appearance, marked by a sombre palette, their dreams are perhaps of a place where there is freedom to move and control over one's body.

 The images are thus entwined, allowing the film to present its core intentions, those that carry within an uplifting and heartwarming message to not let tragedy overwhelm you. The message attains even more relevance in a world that is only beginning to come out of a pandemic, after the oppressive isolation and loneliness that had followed in its wake.

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