When does childhood end? At adolescence? When we reach legal age? Of course, it’s not really a sudden shift so much as a process over a period of time. Red Island, directed by Robert Campillo, looks at the question in a semi-autobiographical reflection. A child begins...
HollyShorts Film Festival is an Oscar-qualifying event, currently going on in Hollywood. Over 200 short films are part of the festival. If you have read my coverage of festivals before, you know that I always try to see shorts at some point. Here are more than I’ll...
Today for HollyShorts, I’m taking a look at some sci-fi films that are part of the festival. Science fiction often offers us ways to look at our world as if from the outside. Good sci-fi is not about technology, per se, as much as it is about our humanity in whatever...
Very early on, Pete Davis (who directs and produces along with his sister Rebecca Davis) clearly states the premise of Join or Die: “This is a film of why you should join a club—and why the fate of America depends on it.” The film focuses on the work of Harvard...
“Being in her presence was like having all the world’s light shining upon you. But when she turned off that light, it was like a shard of glass piercing your heart.” From director and co-writer Frauke Finsterwalder, Sisi & I is a retelling of the story of...
Directed by Jake Paltrow, June Zero begins with the news that Adolf Eichmann has been sentenced to death by an Israeli court. This is not, however, a film about Eichmann or his trial. Rather it is a set of three stories that are on the periphery of that historical...
“I felt evil blow into Jonestown.” In 1978, over 900 people who had followed a charismatic religious leader to a South American jungle died. It is often seen as a mass suicide. It is more properly understood as a mass murder. Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown from...
“Can I die and be reborn as a girl?” In Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20,000 Species of Bees, an eight-year-old who is experiencing gender dysphoria searches for an identity. The child’s mother has her own identity issues to deal with. How each sees themselves and...
“I think I missed it. ... Life.” In Re: Uniting, written and directed by Laura Adkin, a group of best friends come together twenty-five years after college. Their lives have taken them in a variety of directions. They are at a point where they are beginning to...