There are many options to choose from at HollyShorts Film Festival. Today I decided to sample some of the crime and sci-fi genres.
Tadji (19 minutes), directed by Mahdi Borjian, is about a husband-wife relationship more than about crime itself. Tadji, is the factory manager, her husband also works there. That morning at home, he has slapped her needlessly. When a gold bracelet is stolen from the workers’ lockers, Tadji soon discover her husband is the thief. Is this her chance for revenge, or will it be an opportunity to gain control?
Odd Socks (13 minutes), directed by David Ledger, makes fun of the crime genre. In a world populated by both humans and sock puppets, a human detective must solve the murder of a sock puppet. It ventures into every cliché of the genre as he seeks the truth amidst all the lies.
A Crime Across Four Landscapes (7 minutes), directed by Aiden Weaver, is not so much a whodunit as a what-happened. A static camera looks at four scenes from a small rural town. We move from one to the next and back again, each time we see the scene again, there is something different. We know there’s a crime, but not sure just what it all means. It took me a second viewing to put the pieces of the puzzle together. This is an innovative way of storytelling that trusts the audience to be smart enough to figure it out.
Europa (19 minutes), directed by Jacqueline Elyse Rosenthal, is a critique of human nature. Yvette is an oceanographer on a mission to extract water from Jupiter’s moon, because the earth’s waters are no longer viable. When they reach Europa, she has a mystical connection with the conscious planet, which is willing to share to save earth. But Yvette knows that our nature will be to take more and more.
Celeste in the Summer (10 minutes), directed by Hobby Holmes, questions reality. Celeste and Michael roam through sunny vineyards during an idyllic day and evening. But Celeste begins to question the perfection and her understanding of the world. We may ourselves wonder if this world is real and who or what is controlling it.
Certain Thomas (19 minutes), directed by Henry K. Hwang, questions our free will. Thomas is a newly minted police officer in a totalitarian state run by algorithm. The math takes into account people’s behaviors and uses the math to determine what needs to be done for the good of all. But the algorithm will accept no variance. When Thomas is called on to execute a wrong-doer, he’s told to “Trust the math”. Are our lives really just the results of equations that need to be adjusted?
