Calling this animated documentary anything less than the most beautiful delineation of two immutable truths of human existence - pain and death, would be a gross underestimation. At its conclusion, it won't be wrong to expect an overwhelming deluge of emotions, but one which is cathartic in nature. Nguyen deserves further appreciation for interacting with a film type, an animated documentary, which anyway is an ignored field of filmmaking, and thus does not boast of too many reliable fixed templates to turn to for inspiration. Yet, the filmmaker manages to offer the most seamless union of animation and live action.

 The film shares the story of three characters and their encounters with death and the grief that followed in its wake. The narrative employs stunning animation to portray them. The timing, pacing, the manner in which the three parallel narratives are placed and inter-weaved with each other, allow the overarching story of the documentary to truly come into its own, be all that it can be, and more. 

As colours and visuals bleed into the screen space, invoking a surreal reality of loss and heartache, inseparable from each other, a life of distractions, intoxicants, escapism and the eventual moving on is conjured for the viewer. The moving frames and lines become the most accurate representation of the transience of memory and the uncertainty of revisiting another's experience through their narrative. In the process, Apart manages to push the boundaries of animation to present a moving, poignant and surreal interaction with its subject matter.

Apart | Short Film of the Day

The short film attempts a lot of things and succeeds at all of them most gloriously. The narrative is an engagement with the transience and impermanence of things in so many ways. It foregrounds the inexorable passage of time felt in every moment of it, further emphasised by the voice of the narrator, overflowing with a gravity that will set the pace just right for the plot to develop. The film is also a visual feat achieved most effortlessly by the seamless weaving together of a sprinkling of live action visuals with stunning animation. Primarily using the location of a beach the protagonist grew up on, the sand in itself becomes a character, the medium of narration, taking the viewer by the hand on her journey. There is still so much more the film engages with - female friendships, the forever forward moving path of life from childhood to adulthood, an underlying strain of homosexuality, the relationship between the past, and the present and the unreliability of memory. Guaxuma does a stellar job of tying it all together, without making it look like a laborious task, and before the viewer can realise it, they have covered a huge distance within while seemingly partaking in the experiences of the protagonist.

Guaxuma | Short Film of the Day

It's incredibly difficult to pin down what this film truly means to a viewer. It is ethereal and visceral at the same time. It is extremely complex, nuanced, evasive, and yet, at its core, has a simple premise. While the subject it deals with is endlessly layered, its voice and tone is fairly straightforward. But wait, what genre does it belong to? Is it dramatic, surreal, violent in its execution of its story? Is it all or none of it? As you struggle with the questions and their answers, it is indeed in this compulsion you feel to engage with it that the success of the film lies. The body of the narrative is the poem of the same name by Olivia Gatwood. Though both Dani Pearce and Gatwood belong to different parts of the world, having first participated in the conversation around this short film virtually, Backpedal further goes on to exhibit the transcendence of art, the universality of an experience when it's treated with absolute honesty and sincerity. The story becomes a commentary on gender, the desperate need of adolescents to fit in with their peers, in general, and of young women trying to fit in with their male counterparts in particular. Violent images of a murder are invoked, as are those of grief, tragedy and loss. It's astonishing how much the film manages to convey in its short length. Further, it's unequivocally loud and clear in its message, one expressed in an experimental manner, ensuring that the story and its images will continue to haunt you, making you return to it over and over again after your first interaction with the world conjured by Backpedal.

Backpedal | Short Film of the Day

What happens when a man only has 1500 words left to live? Does he rage against the arbitrary nature of life where words have come to reign supreme when it comes to human communication? Or does he accept silence as his fate and goes on with life with his head down? The film is a humorous yet heart-breaking exploration of the same dilemma as Stanley struggles to stay alive as well as his keep marriage afloat. In its own nuanced and comedic manner, the narrative further engages with the importance (or the lack) of silence in a relationship. As Stanley strives to extend his life, a very tough enemy remains to be conquered - the absolute human need to articulate - be it sadness, pain, anger, denial or love. Amidst all this rigmarole of emotions, expectations and duties, where will the protagonist finally find himself?

1500 Words | 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 calmness of the narrative would take your breath away, even before we come to its other aspects. It is weaved with poise and quiet, allowing the film to form a deep bond with the viewer despite its short duration. The visuals and the background score further serve to enhance the sentiment. The camera stays while the characters keep moving, the music bleeds into the next scene even when the frame has changed. The black and white palette ensures that the film is stripped of any distracting elements that could have potentially disturbed this calm. Using an economy of dialogues in the voiceover that comes to constitute the only words that would be uttered in the film, a powerful experience is invoked for the audience. The scene is set for a rodeo show in a small town, along with an indelible spectacle the protagonist is about to witness. Through its interaction with his lived reality, the story further raises questions about life, existence, and a person's location in a particular place in the world. The film succeeds most wonderfully because it does not attempt to be anything it's already not - an understated, nuanced conversation about the moments that constitute, influence, and mold existence.

After the Smoke | Short Film of the Day

A woman goes about her day, putting on a clean dress, and taking care of chores in the house. The visuals, however, are coupled with a sinister voice of a man who proclaims god-like truths, immediately making the viewer deeply uneasy. 

The woman, on the contrary, is comfortable, and in the process of preparing for something, a ritual perhaps for the Children of Enoch, the cult she is a part of. After the death of Father Enoch, the leader whose voice now echoes through the realm of the film pronouncing the cult's philosophies, and two of her companions, she awaits their resurrection on the sixth day. The film opens on the very day when, if the dead are not brought back to life, the watcher, the woman herself, must ‘join’ them in their ‘journey’. 

Long, fixed shots of the protagonist moving about in a house with notable ease that harbors three dead bodies, daintily dressed in her pale pink dress, ushers in the definitive horror inherent to the narrative. The subtlety of the horror, quiet but undeniable in its impact, becomes the most prominent strength of the film. The consequent, skillfully-handled narrative, further bolstered by equally remarkable performances, becomes powerful and disconcerting in its brevity.

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