'Silence 1b' is a poignant romance with grief, loss and the trauma that gets left behind in its wake. The real triumph of the film lies in the manner in which it approaches its thematic concern, weaving together visual and audio metaphors and symbols. 

Concisely put, it is the story of a woman mourning the loss of her partner, one she was yet to know enough to be able to put their relationship in a normative structure or category. However, the sharpness of grief knows no such rules and spares none in its forever advancing motion. The inability to reconcile the self with the ensuing pain, especially in the absence of a vocabulary to articulate it, becomes the emotional guiding force of the plot. 

All of this is explored and condensed within a few minutes of the narrative, maintaining brevity throughout. The experimental treatment remains a notable strength of the film, while staying consistently faithful to the overall style and aesthetic, making the viewer feel the true force of the emotions being invoked before them.

Silence 1b | Short Film of the Day

If a short film is simply the portrayal of a moment in its characters' life, the choice of this particular moment by Miranda Manziano exhibits uniqueness and originality of thought. Velour opens on a note of calmness; it's morning and a woman sleeps in her pristinely white bed, wrinkled enough only to reveal the presence of its occupant. However, this sense of tranquility is disturbed, before the viewer becomes too comfortable, by the protagonist's screams into her pillow. It is important to spend time allowing this image to sink in as the perfect harbinger of what's to come - a sincere engagement with trauma and the manner in which it comes to affect the life of someone who grapples with it on a daily basis. After the emptiness and the silence of her house, Valentina is introduced to the viewer as being a senior professional in a fashion house, a woman who is quite the opposite of what they might have been led to assume so far. This juxtaposition is especially interesting for it will serve to accentuate and amplify the sentiment and series of events that are about to follow. The protagonist's struggle to overcome a traumatic experience of a sexual assault leads her to a dominatrix, Velour, introducing the audience to the premise of the film. Through the controlled interactions of its characters, the short film presents a relevant engagement with trauma, mental health, sexual violence, and progress just when things seem too bleak. While growth and recovery might not follow a linear trajectory, there is indeed something to be said about the hope and motivation to never give in, to forever keep pushing instead of succumbing to the darkness, and it is in this reminder that the film acquires all its power, foregrounding the experience of a survivor who is more than what her trauma often threatens to reduce her to, and who is perhaps finally on the path of overcoming and vanquishing the darkness within once and for all.

Velour | Short Film of the Day

Trigger warning: self-harm 

‘Flash/Crash’ is an intimate exploration of trauma, loss and the grief that gets left behind in its wake. All of these complex emotional states are tied with substance abuse and addiction, to paint a world that is initially marked by darkness. 

The film thus maps a trajectory from the bleakness of despair to perhaps what could be an eventual attainment of hope and a new lease of life. Whether or not the protagonist is capable of achieving it becomes one of the core concerns of the plot, with the answer being pronounced alongside the film’s message at the conclusion. 

The tight, hand-held shots enable the narrative to present a heartfelt portrayal of the intimacy invoked at the start while giving the viewer a hard, long look at the realities of primarily two characters. Both performances are defined by skill, in the process, ensuring that the film achieves completion in a lucid, seamless manner.

Flash/Crash | Short Film of the Day

A marine biologist works into the night when unexplained noises from under the water's surface halt her work. As another expert steps in to unravel the mystery of the sounds, while also alluding to the menace of plastics and their onslaught on the environment, the most shocking reality unfolds. 

The film presents a swift introduction of not only the strange circumstance at hand but also a glimpse into Amy, the protagonist’s world. There is loss, and perhaps past trauma, coupled with a fierce sense of protecting the memory of a partner that has been left behind in its wake - components all of which rope in deep unease into the story. 

Without truly offering the cause and effect, and what has led Amy to this moment, a sinister situation is portrayed for the viewer. The film does an efficient job of not only using the limited aspects of a story but also a confined physical space to bring all of this to life in its brevity. Additionally, it leaves the door open for a longer exploration of the moment the film presents.

The Purgamentum | Short Film of the Day

The brief narrative of the film invokes a dark reality, one defined by war sirens and imminent, destructive raids. However the world thus conjured has a noble cause at its heart, the message of hope. 


The narrative aims to remind the viewer of the invincibility of hope, and the undeniable light at the end of the tunnel. The protagonist is a woman who battles overwhelming mental and emotional demons. She is plagued by memories of violence, as the film endeavors to paint the lived reality of the innumerable Ukrainians who are dealing with the ravages of the war that has torn their homeland asunder. 

The film is presented as part of an initiative by the National Psychological Association, backed by the United Nations Development Programme, the European Union, and the governments of Denmark and Canada, to provide free mental health assistance to Ukrainians all over the world. The resultant film is a sincere, heartfelt endeavor, that conveys its intentions with lucidity and manages to present a realm of loss, heartache, loneliness, and the memory of what once was or could have been.

Psychological Helpline | Short Film of the Day

In a bid to survive extremely harsh conditions that render air unfit to breathe, Samuel, the sole survivor of a seemingly apocalyptic event, struggles to connect vague dots of a life that might eventually be the very factor standing between his own life and death. While his surroundings continue to turn stranger, the sense of another person being present with him never truly leaves him. 

The voices of a traumatic past constantly overwhelm him, but the pursuit of survival continues amidst it all. The film constructs its world with care, paying attention to the edit and the subsequent stylistic choices that are interweaved with the visuals. The colors are muted, as if to communicate the grey realms between what is real and what isn’t that the protagonist battles. 

Though not without some rough edges in the overall atmospheric quality, the end result presents a meticulous story about the past, the endless effort of overcoming it in the process of moving on, and finally finding that all the answers that Samuel sought were within him all along.

Midnight Travels | Short Film Nominee

‘An Apocalypse’ weaves together two very disparate elements, one of the controlling adult realm, and the other of the powerlessness and naïveté of childhood. As a child is left at the mercy of his father’s extreme obsession with the end of the world, the plot is fleshed out gradually to present to the viewer the cruelty of this disturbing circumstance. 

Inherent to the plot, thus, becomes a comment about how terribly wrong things can go when adults, capable of controlling a life entirely, allow their own dysfunctionality to spill over onto the next generation. 

The film has its rough edges and wrinkles, but those which cannot take away from the potential it exhibits in terms of writing and storytelling. Future projects will only bring out the impact and force of the two further, and hence, should definitely be engaged with by the filmmaker.

Most Viewed

Genres

Awards

Follow Us

Quick Links