Insightful, sharp and subtle are the three words that most aptly describe the documentary film and its subject matter. The execution is calm and exhibits a maturity that allows it to be an impactful product without demanding attention vociferously. The film engages with a needle exchange facility in California that also gives basic medical aid and assistance to those whose bodies have been affected by substance abuse. The narrative succeeds at being calm, yet deeply forceful in making its point simply because it does not strive for an overarching meaning for its existence, but instead tells its truth as it is. The subject is powerful, the story hard-hitting. The camerawork is simple, but precisely what this particular story needs. The images are chosen intelligently to allow the narrative to disconcert the viewer without being sensationally graphic. It further engages with health and survival with the right balance of being clinical and non-participatory, yet sensitive. Staying completely honest and sincere to a particular event or occurrence makes it all the more poignant and moving which is what The Clinic achieves most effortlessly. Through an objective representation of an aspect of the society we inhabit, it provides a meaningful narrative about life and existence.

The Clinic | Short Film of the Day

Zoo is a notable union of a powerful story and equally strong visuals to supplement it. In terms of technique, the film follows all the rules of sound, music and camera angles to create an atmosphere of suspense, uncertainty as well as to mount action, and yet, it does not come across as pedantic. The storytelling, instead, is marked by efficiency and seamlessness. While the narrative raises potent, urgent questions about a desperate need of the hour, the approach adopted for the same is simple, making its message all the more impactful in the face of complete absence of garish devices or tools. 

The film is a comment on racism, drawing the viewer's attention to a conversation specifically around police brutality that shook the world and made it sit up the past year. However, it should be noted that it brings in personal experiences, ensuring that it is not simply a macrocosmic narrative about a white and a black man, but also of two people with their own internal, individual struggles and frustrations. Further, the manner of treatment of this dissatisfaction offers a sharp contrast. For instance, a white character, who comes from a space of entitlement owing to his racial identity, is convinced of being allowed the opportunity to inflict violence on another with impunity, even in the face of all calmness and rationality received from the other party. 

Your dissatisfactions are perhaps then allowed to find expression in the violence and cruelty you inflict on others if you are of a certain race, lurks the subtle comment within the folds of the film; like in a zoo where we are all animals, waiting to give in to our bestial sides under the right circumstances. Or worse, since the existing hierarchy is engineered to dismiss the marginalized further to a realm defined by the absolute disregard for their life. 

Though the technique and visual approach of the film has already been appreciated, it is important to mention the same again. The film deliberately drops visual cues regarding what is to come. For instance, it is a beautifully ominous shot of our protagonist peering into a store while metal rods make their presence felt against a glass window, making the scene suggestive of incarceration, a prison. It is precisely after this moment that the tone of the film changes. The plot moves from personal, localised struggles of debauchery and petty thefts to a thematic concern that would come to raise potent questions about systemic racism and oppression. It is especially important to invoke this particular visual image at this juncture because it further asserts the film's title - the reality of a world where a black man is born within the cage a festering society has already chosen for him. 

Additionally, there is an emphasis on the fierceness of youth which is allowed to you depending on your racial identity. The body language of a white man before a potential figure of authority offers a disturbing juxtaposition with that of a black man. 

Within the body of the film rest several significant comments while it continues to maintain its crispness throughout. There is a portrayal of how mindless violence often leads to a cycle of hatred, an action-reaction equation, a cause and effect. One attack on the oppressed can sometimes lead to a retaliation the oppressor did not expect. The film does not take sides regarding this reaction, it only presents it to the viewer in an objective manner. 

What is especially notable about the final product is that it manages to bring in all of these concerns (and more) to encourage a pertinent discussion on the reality of existence determined by your racial identity. The same is achieved organically, without stumbling or using cliches or sentimentalism as crutches. It is indeed in this confident assertion of its thoughts, the consequent clarity of the message and the eventual realisation of these intentions that the success of the film lies.

Zoo | Short Film of the Day

The film is a heartfelt conversation between a mother and her unborn child, one that she lost. As the visuals reimagine an existence of what-could-have-been, the viewer is taken into a world of substance abuse. Along with drawing attention to a severe problem that plagues society, the film also invokes an emotional reality. It is marred by a decision gone wrong, the manner in which it affected not just the woman, but also a life that was inevitably linked with hers, and the consequent crushing burden of guilt. The protagonist's battle with the trauma and grief is allowed portrayal on screen, until the eventual caving in to the weight she has been carrying all along. The film does a notable job of using color and filters to bring to life just the right atmosphere and ambience for the world it has intended to present to the viewer. It is a product marked by vision and a strong attempt at realizing and executing it, especially by way of beautiful visuals.

Seabreeze | Short Film Nominee

At a teeming platform where people are warned against traveling on the roofs of trains to avoid electrocution, and the overflowing crowd simply steps off a moving train, with little to no concern for their safety, it is evident that the sight has the potential of leading you to innumerable stories. The narrative instead chooses to focus on a single character - the incandescent Bittoo Escobar (even though she would instead prefer the name of a goddess of illusions). 

Bittoo's world is constituted by her small, but undeniable presence in a crowded Indian city, where hoardings of cosmetics with air-brushed faces are aplenty. It is a city of 'amazement' parks where the young woman is ready to take on the world. An indispensable part of the fisherwomen community, she is involved in small-time seedy drug deals, surviving with fearlessness and an iron-will until an unfortunate encounter with a cop. 

The film allows two parallel plot lines to develop simultaneously, one of Bittoo's exchange with the cop, another about the situations that led her to this point. Both are allowed an existence in a universe which is crowded enough to send you in an emotional overdrive in times of a pandemic, and yet, located at the centre of all the chaos, further presented to you using bright visuals accompanied by a high-paced narrative, Bittoo Escobar stands firmly on her two feet, determined and raring to go.

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