The film is an existential musing about the tenuous relationship between humans and the animal world, with intrinsic violence located at its heart. 

The interaction between the two unfolds after a tragic attack in which the protagonist, a young deer, loses her mother to a human bullet. As she now finds herself consumed by vengeful anger, a path of revenge, and what it could mean for someone who sees it as their sole escape out of heartache, loss, and grief, becomes a crucial driving force of the film. Additionally, there is something to be said about an endeavor that is founded on the desire for such violent retribution and the futility it might usher in. 

While portraying all of this, the narrative places the agency with the animals who present their perspective regarding the human world to the viewer. Anthromorphozing them offers a canvas of emotions, a story of loss and heartache, a first-hand account of the misery our young protagonist battles. The subsequent screenplay offers an interweaving of nature and outdoors, with human brutality, ensuring that the film's many components are able to share all of their intentions with clarity and emphasis.

Animals | Short Film of the Day

Set in the fantastical world of Vanderia, the first three instalments of Windward Spirits map primarily a conflict between the two kingdoms of Brauhn and Gaudrina. As kings and nomad princes (of sorts) fight it out against each other, the story packs a complete supply of drama, violence, bloodshed, betrayal and what could turn out to be an imminent doom of the few characters planning to wage a resistance against the tyrant king of Brauhn, William Dalesdane. 
The first episode opens on an interesting note, attempting to immediately grab the attention of the viewer as an emissary from Dalesdane arrives to seek the audience of Lord Garris Hartwill of Gaudrina. The events preceding the meeting include a deal that Hartwill's father Weylan had struck with Dalesdane. Being unable to follow through with it entirely, however, he had met with a horrifying end. The subsequent events thereafter would come to serve as the premise on which the series builds its action. 
Soon after, the narrative goes into a high-paced mode with things unravelling and unfolding at a speed that requires the viewer to play close attention to all the details and names. The series is complete with the various elements of fantasy - a betrayed lord, a nomad prince, a tyrant ruler whose swiftly growing power threatens to consume and destroy anything that stands in his way. There are creatures of the night, monsters of the desert and perilous journeys that need to be covered on foot in the face of all of these dangers. 
Fantasy is an ambitious genre to engage with and hence the series deserves full-points for embarking on the endeavour, despite its limited resources. However, it could have benefited from refining of certain technical elements. Closer attention to detail would have allowed the story to be more textured and perhaps offer the viewer a more convincing world to dive into.

Windward Spirits

Windward Spirits: A New Ruler

A New Ruler

Windward Spirits: Blood Ties

Blood Ties

Windward Spirits: On Deadly Grounds

On Deadly Grounds

A woman asleep inside a freshly-dug grave, a group of kids who offer a strange union of sinisterness and endearment, a young priest passed out drunk - these disparate images greet you when you begin an interaction with the film. The disparateness ensures that the viewer is already lured deep into the world of The Wages of Sin!, one they are now unlikely to leave until the narrative has reached its conclusion. 

 
The plot offers an important motif in the form of a coin, just casually introduced within the story, but a crucial object that would come to alter the course of the film every time a crossroads or the need to make an important decision arrives. The woman, Martha, is soon revealed to be digging the grave of her husband who seems to have returned from the dead with an important task that he has assigned to her. The bamboozled priest, trying to make sense of the situation, on the other hand, attempts to reason with her. 

The introductory images are now all weaved together to allow the story to come into its own. The monochrome palette of a dark comedy of this kind, sometimes presents it with inhibitions, but to a willing viewer, also adds an otherworldliness to the events unfolding before you. On the whole, once you look past the rough edges, the film packs an entertaining punch marked by humor, eccentricity and the eventual (and satisfying!) vindication of the fates of the characters.

The Wages of Sin! | Short Film of the Day

A disoriented sex-worker arrives at the doorstep of a potentially dangerous client. As the details become more and more lucid in her head, and memory is entwined with remembrance, a fragmented reality of sorts begins to come into existence. However, the viewer is never left in silence for the voice of the protagonist remains our constant companion. Unsure of her surroundings, she remains an unreliable source of information throughout, but also the only one available to the viewer. 

The narrative is weaved with an approach that keeps the audience guessing about whether or not to believe the sole voice. At the same time, however, the development of the visual narrative leaves no two ways about the chain of events. The plot acquires a fairly well-defined form when the two overlap, eventually leaving us with a story about friendships, protectiveness and looking out for one another in a space located at the margins of society. 

There is almost a heady quality to the manner in which all of these thematic concerns, and their linked metaphors, are dealt with in this story which traces its steps back to an act of violence, while, at the same time, positioning itself as the origin story of a vigilante.

Pimp Girl | Short Film of the Day

A bunch of most unlikely characters find themselves in a uniquely strange situation, and it is at this point that the narrative begins to reveal its cards. Two men are arrested by a police officer after having been caught doing recreational drugs, and soon after a series of hilarious, unfortunate and unexpected events begin to unfold. The story thus comes to be marked by heartbreak, a former lover and a desire for revenge exploited by the two men in the hope of being allowed to be set free by the cops. Because the film starts off with such a distinctive premise, of course the viewer is in for an interesting ride. As matters come to a head, one of the two men comes to the rescue of the heartbroken cop as an attempt at a negotiation chip. The plan is to beat up the current lover of the latter's former lover. The film realises its intentions with a stylistic approach marked by sharp camera movements and complementary background music. It invokes laughter at the expense of the misadventures of the characters presented forth, like a quintessential comical story, and finally concludes with having given the audience a glimpse into a night of comedic and bizarre moments, while also being engaging and entertaining all along.

Perps | Short Film Nominee

The story of Bound is one marked by grief, pain, hurt, but above all, revenge. It is a glimpse of a person's unraveling into delirium, derangement and everything else they can lead to. When the film opens, we are introduced to a fairly inane image - a pair of hands and a card game. These visuals are mapped against classical piano notes, allowing the film almost an operatic feel. However, this further gives way to a sense of foreboding, like the events are building towards a crescendo, a tragedy. The stillness of the house, its silence only broken by our protagonist's words of anger directed towards an unknown caller, establish and concretize this ominousness. The narrative has been honest in the portrayal of its intentions so far for the house has a dark secret, hidden deep in its cellar. Our protagonist, the seemingly solitary occupant of this house, an old woman playing cards by herself or hanging up phone calls in fits of temper, holds a man captive in the basement, one who is responsible for the death of her husband. The plot reveals all of these details slowly and without fanfare, allowing the viewer to be lured into the story gradually and organically. It is in this quiet approach that the story's objectives are realized fully, allowing the final product to be a sincere engagement with a woman's desperate and disturbingly violent attempts to deal with her grief and loss.

Bound | Short Film Nominee

The film explores the cycle of hate that is put in motion the moment someone sets out on the path of revenge. The protagonist aims to avenge a personal tragedy for which she holds a right-wing supremacist group responsible. 
All of the action and drama unfold devoid of any dialogue, employing only the visuals that develop before us. The film, primarily a solo project, pushes the limits by confining its shoot entirely to a smartphone. Intrinsic to the plot, however, remains the question, what are the consequences truly if one decides to cause more tragedy to assuage their hurting heart? While some wrinkles are inevitable in a film that confines itself to production approaches like that of 'Wires', it still presents a judicious, efficient use of its resources, alongside exhibiting potential when it comes to storytelling. It further evidences meaningful engagement with ideas of right and wrong, and the ways one might attempt to reconcile their grief. On the level of story and writing, this becomes a marked characteristic of the film.

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