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ANIMATED SHORTS
A daughter and her father have never really found a way to be close and communicate with each other, and the sadness of that divide permeates as his life is winding down. This wasn't my favorite, but the animation captured the emotion so beautifully, it was very impressive.
My favorite and the likely winner of the bunch, Hair Love finds a dad ill equipped to style his daughter's gorgeous hair, but a #girldad never gives up. With a bit of help from YouTube and a big scoop of "can do," nothing will keep this father daughter team from making his daughter gorgeous before they go to visit her ailing mom in the hospital. Many prognosticators are calling it for Hair Love (and I'm one of them!)
A skittish kitty makes friends with a pitbull who is being kept for an underground fighting ring. He is sweet and abused. Oy, this one was so hard to watch! I can't imagine how anyone can do this to these dogs. But worry not, the kitty knows how to be strong when he needs to, and this unlikely friendship will mean more to both than they ever could predict.
The heartbreaking but beautiful depiction of memory loss, the animation portrays every stroke, every drop of "paint" that goes into making a life, and how hollow people become when the sufferer can no longer fully remember the people in his life.
A deceptively charming short about the cruelty of China's one child policy and forced abortion. One man reenvisions his life had he had the sister sibling that his mother was forced to terminate.
LIVE ACTION SHORTS
Brotherhood is the very disturbing story of a boy returning home to his family. He went to join ISIS in Syria against his family's wishes, and the father in particular is not tolerant of his son's murderous past, nor of his extreme Muslim views. The son even arrives home with a fully burqa covered very young wife. The father acts before he knows the rest of the story.
The discovery of pounds of cocaine in the desert by two young brothers prompts the older brother to spy a money-making opportunity. The younger of the two thinks they have found laundry detergent, and the older one does nothing to change that perception. But when the savvy brother attempts to make a sale to the local criminals, he discovers that his younger brother has other plans for the product.
A movie that's starts out funny and titillating - a couple with a direct view of their young neighbors' apartment, they find themselves obsessing over their lives filled with sex, parties, dancing, and fun. They even buy binoculars as they fantasize about the grass-is-always-greener lifestyle of counterparts who don't have children and responsibilities. As they watch, they discover that the grass is not always greener, and sometimes, the most important thing, is actual human connection.
This short is based on the true story of young teenage orphans held in a detention center in Guatemala. They are children functionally being kept in cages for their life circumstances - and the girls are regularly raped, beaten, and treated to the worst of living conditions. After a staged protest that draws the attention of the country, they try to escape but are caught and returned to their locked in lives. When a fire is set inside the locked room, the guard at the door ignores what is happening and all 41 girls die in the fire. There is a lesson here about callous disregard for human life.
This thrilling, edge of your seat, short follows a young woman who tells her rapist (who she knows) that she needs to call her sister. She really calls the police and the operator on the other end of the line must decipher that the woman is in trouble, and figure out where the woman is so that she can send help. This one is tense and epitomizes what can only be done in a short film. It was excellent.
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