Norwich Film Festival presents Friday Night's Alright For Shorts
I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of short films, that means of portraying a story in a little amount of time is something I enjoy. So getting to see a collection of festival entry shorts back-to-back was a cool evening.
Kicking things off was a Mexican set tale about border crossing and hope called The Land of Exodus. It looked stunning as we swept over the sun-scorched scenery but it perhaps wasn’t the most exciting film to set the night in motion. However, watching it after the recent big news Stateside felt more surreal knowing what these children may be facing in years to come.
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To tell a story and to do it well, there needs to be a good amount of connection to the narrative, interesting characters and they’re the basics, which is why for me at least, I failed to engage with the one or two minute movies within the catalogue shown. Headless people and ideas for singing shouted pretentiousness, and a slightly amusing run down on car features looked amateur and out of place with the rest of what was screened.
My stand out favourites were Man O Man because it was absurd, dark and cleverly created with puppets. Music and shouting came into perfect harmony to tell a story about inner primal rage. I love stop-motion so I really liked watching wHole which had a fairly obvious plot choice in the middle but went to a tragic end and overall was enjoyed by the audience. I got wrapped up in the animation segments of The King, as narration and cartoon design helped put across a smart fable. Muck was a very well acted family drama that came with unexpected turns and the comedic moments found in The Mother were a delight that made me and everyone laugh.
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Capping off the night was a strange and quite twisted story about a bloody test subject titled Eddie, which came to a predictable finale but was surreal and ended the run of shorts with a solid bang. All in all there were a great selection of shorts that made you laugh, think and make your own.
