SXSW Review: Narrative Shorts

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Fatakra

This year at SXSW Film, I decided to spend less time in line and more at the satellite and smaller venues, and catching the Narrative and Midnight Shorts programs. Kudos to SXSW Film programmers Claudette Godfrey and Stephanie Noone who set up the short film lineup. Anyone who's read my AFF Selected Shorts or Fantastic Fest coverage knows I love the short film format, partly due to the small time investments for great rewards. I found myself on the edge of my theater seat in under 15 minutes for one film and brought to tears of joy by another in the next 15. Find out which films that I found were most engaging after the jump.

By far my favorite SXSW shorts program this year was SXSW Narrative Shorts 1 -- almost every film in this diverse collection effectively built up suspense.

  • SXSW Narrative Short Jury winner Pioneer is a funny and endearing piece, with two lead actors perfectly complementing one another -- 5-year-old Myles Brooks and Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy, as a father and son sharing the most epic bedtime story, that might be more fact than fiction. The film made its way to Austin after a Sundance premiere earlier this year.
  • UT Austin MFA candidate Soham Mehta's thesis film Fatakra centers on Naveen, who left India to follow his dreams of prosperity in America. Three years later, his wife and son reluctantly join him for a less than joyful reunion. Sparks fly as a family reunites, and this poignant story left me in joyful tears at the end.
  • Fran's Daughter was a moving story of mistaken identity -- or not? This film examines what happens when we learn that something we hold certain about our identity turns out to be untrue, and what we do with that information.
  • The Strange Ones is an example of a short film that could easily be a full-length feature. Filmmakers Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein's approach to a rather sensitive subject matter is handled superbly. Hitchcock would have been impressed with the buildup of suspense and terror in this short film. Watch the trailer for The Strange Ones below:

 

Whether dealing with social issues or mental disorders, the theme for SXSW Narrative Shorts 2 was conversation starters, as I found myself discussing several of the films afterward.

  • Woman Waiting focuses on a middle-aged woman faced with poverty. As she struggles to find help within the system, her only option is to wait -- painful to watch but critical to understand the challenges of dealing with the system.
  • Animal Control contains some rather disturbing images into taxidermy and animal control. Yet with only one human character whose best friends are stuffed animals, this darkly humorous film exhibits compassion after a chance encounter.
  • Flow centers on a young woman nearly paralyzed by severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but finally discovers dance as a way to deal with her daily rituals.

The films in the SXSW Narrative Shorts 3 program mostly centered around dysfunctional relationships.

  • The Good Neighbor, directed by Austin editor/filmmaker Jacob Vaughan (Dear Pillow) and written by John Bryant (Oh My God, The Overbrook Brothers) shows what happens when a guinea pig comes between an overly attentive neighbor and the woman who rejects his advances. The short stars local actor Chris Doubek.
  • The sexually graphic Ex-Sex depicts a one-night stand between old flames, and is a reminder that you can't go back.
  • Finally, A Shore Thing reminds viewers that three little words can often have the wrong intent, and the climax left me sympathetic to the young couple featured in this short film.

Austin and Texas Connections: Fatakra was filmed nearby in Giddings -- director Soham Mehta was raised in Houston, and later studied theatre and computer science at UT Austin. Fatakra cinematographer Iskra Valtcheva studied film at UT Austin and worked on 2005 and 2006 Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund Grant recipient projects: Iris Moon (director) and Love, Sadie (cinematographer). Dallas writer/director David Lowery's Pioneer was also a TFPF recipient.

If you're interested in the SXSW Texas Shorts program, check out Don Clinchy's review.