The Cutting Edge is devoted to local filmmakers’ short films. Don’t dismiss short films. Shorts lay future features’ foundation.
On September 18th, 2023, The Secret Society of Black Creatives, Roxbury International Film Festival and ArtsBoston presented Sights Unseen, a fictional short film screening at Coolidge Corner Theater. If you are interested but missed this event, there will be more opportunities in the future.
- Hardened
Horror meets true crime thriller in this two-act short revolving around an investigative reporter, Luke Harden (Brandon Scales, who also wrote the story). The first act reveals the aftermath of an attack on a humble home’s inhabitants. The second act reveals the attackers’ motive and unfolds a year earlier as a furtive stranger interrupts Luke and his coworkers celebrating at a restaurant. Director Tim Young opens with a riveting, tension-filled, edge of your seat tracking shot which wordlessly told the victims’ entire tragic story without a word of dialogue. This devastating gut punch felt reminiscent of John Carpenter’s camera movement in “Halloween” (1978) without losing sight of the characters’ humanity. Scales’ ambitious story has a laudable goal as a paean to journalists’ courage and a humanitarian impulse to shed light on a serious issue, sex trafficking. The drawback of in medias res, starting in the middle of the story or the “how we got here” narrative, is the lack of tension in the second act because the audience already knows what is going to happen. As a short, it may have been better to devote the entire film to one act, but if expanded further, it could work. As a feature, to avoid any appearance of exploitation, the filmmakers will have to be vigilant against privileging a man’s perspective as witness over a woman’s painful experiences and find a way to balance the two. If developed, research into real-life, first-person survivor accounts could anchor the second act.
- Piecing Together the Portraits of You
Married filmmakers Javier Castillo and Dominique Holliday follow a family struggling to navigate a tidal wave of grief over the death of family members. While temporarily on leave from school, artist Julia (Princesa Paredes) lives with Uncle Julio (Henry Acosta), Aunt Maya (Elisa Guzman-Hosta) and Cousin Alex (Cristian Rodriguez). Visiting the area from Argentina, loving but problematic Aunt Clara (Malena Gordo in a scene-stealing, comedic performance) drops by. The loving family tries to rally and bond but find it challenging to stop rebuking each other. Some members are compelled to instill respectable, expected, normative behavior. Will they accept each other as they are? Castillo and Holliday capture the painful contradictions of family life in a realistic manner. They keep things light with the bright colored home and Julia’s pastel art. Without being moralistic, the cast depict these serious scenarios with a sense of humor and extracts unexpected laughs after an inadvertent outing of one character’s sexuality. The camera movement echoes the rhythm of someone watching a tennis match. The characters felt organic, not fictional. This thirty-four-minute short stood out as the only bilingual (English and Spanish) entry, which added to the authentic flavor. The set chef deserves an IMDb credit for making all the featured meals. The film also distinguished itself as the sole period piece by depicting characters communicating via phone. It was also the only story with poignant supernatural elements. While a tad melodramatic, this coming-of-age film shows that every character can become a better version of themselves.
- Plus 1s
Writer and costar Liz Eng and directors David J. Curtis and Katelyn Grace Reddy, who directed via Zoom, reframe the romcom as a female friendship buddy comedy. Roommates, straitlaced sweetie Andrea (Nicole A Davis) and adventurous bisexual Molly (Eng), struggle to find dates for a mutual friend’s wedding. The fifteen-minute film leverages social media and dating app imagery to accentuate each punchline as Andrea and Molly alternate going on a total of six dates. Their potential partners vary in terms of eligibility, and Jordan (Rafael Silva), is memorable as a clueless boba lover. The rapid, consistent pacing of the dialogue made most of the jokes land except for date five’s twist, which was a blink and miss it moment. The retro use of wipes to cut to a different scene felt fresh and postmodern because of the counterintuitive wipe’s direction in scene transitions. The visual tone is upbeat and colorful. This short feels ready to hit the ground running for a larger, mainstream, commercial audience; however, the sitcomesque scenarios and line delivery could move it in the direction of a comedy series as opposed to a standalone movie. While no human being should be objectified, it is a welcome change for the Western world to see more images of sexy Asian men. There is a bittersweet storyline that aligns with statistics for black women and online dating, but it makes the final scene of solidarity among women of color more powerful and countercultural.
- Cry for Me
A couple (set designer Leah Nicole and codirector Daniel Laurent) present a perfect, public facing façade. Behind the closed doors of their beautiful, spacious home, the mask comes off as the insecure husband lays out psychological minefields for the wife to navigate and survive. As the husband spirals, and his emerging dissolute behavior in the neighborhood punctures appearances, the tension builds regarding how the wife will respond. This domestic drama depicts an unfortunate, quotidian reality of intimate partner violence. The vaguely sinister swooping forward tracking shot pans over the manicured, spacious landscape to the impressive home and sets the stage for the unsettling dynamic between the partners. Once inside, the scene transitions to a lit burner and screaming tea kettle, which are obvious danger symbols and preferable to depicting explicit scenes of marital abuse. Expressive lighting substitute explosive clashes. In their final collaboration, directors Laurent and Ben Cassian introduce ingredients which suggest achieved lifestyle goals: detailed cars overflowing with shopping bags, dapper outfits and cultivated, comfortable, warm décor. Yet the toxic cloud hangs over every interaction even when no words are exchanged. There are explicit references to “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and a quote from the television series’ lead actor, Mariska Hargitay, which point to this twenty-minute short’s goal. The film functions as a public service announcement to encourage people to recognize the signs of abuse and get help. While avoiding the pitfalls of exploitation, there are unlikely moments of comedy when the film gives viewers a sneak peek at each character’s action when alone.
- Say Your Name
Even with solid encouragement from his girlfriend (Lizandra Gomes), recovering alcoholic and aspiring actor Marcus (Zair Silva) struggles to succeed in auditions. Attending AA meetings and delivering food are barely enough to dissuade him from the temptation of swigging a nip until another actor, Lionel (Paul Benford-Bruce), mentors him. If Sights Unseen was awarding best actor awards, Benford-Bruce would win. He disappears into the role of an affable actor with an infectious love for the craft, then transforms into a thespian by showing Lionel performing the dialogue that Marcus was butchering in earlier scenes. Director and writer Matt Kerr’s use of common narrative techniques was deft and hidden throughout the short. His sculpting of the story generated genuine surprises with a redemptive arc that implies one chain of events until the end reframes everything that came before. Marcus and his girlfriend felt underwritten and archetypical. The financial reality of their situation made her unwavering support seem Herculean and his career choices feel idealistic and overly optimistic. More background was needed. Women viewers are less receptive to narratives of strong women unconditionally supporting their partner while doing everything so there needs to be a solid foundation to make her choice relatable, not foolish. Also it would help to give her a name. Kerr’s collaboration with cinematographer/editor Rui Canvasking Lopes, who also worked on “Hardening,” succeed in visually telling the story by creating dissonance (not matching the audio with the scene), showing time lapses with dissolves, and evocative nighttime shots. Also loved the surreal bunny shot.
Albaramarina Nahar starred, wrote, and directed this short about Janiah, a woman moving on from a romantic split and preparing herself to take the plunge again. This lyrical film feels like a visual journal and emerges as the most cinematic entry of the evening. Nahar’s twelve-minute gentle movie felt like a welcome passing of the baton from the independent films of the nineties with its diaphanous, saturated lighting punctuated with the occasional darkened interior. Perhaps Nahar is claiming mumblecore’s heritage for women of color. The quotidian bohemian and urban shooting locations add to the realistic texture. While abstract narrative may only appeal to a niche audience, it captures universal moments of goofing around alone such as making up silly songs, straightening up at home and rehearsing being casual before seeing someone. It is also exceptional because it does not use a dramatic premise as an excuse to tell the story yet is still a satisfying character study that takes the viewer on an emotional journey. Nahar captures the romantic quality of everyday life and drinking in your surroundings. Just the act of grabbing a stack of books and moving them evokes an ephemeral notion of the magical quality of life. While violent moments in movies quicken the pulse and are favored, Nahar exhibits an intrepid mindset to risk rejection by making a movie that could mocked as being about nothing but shows how meaningful and unpredictable the simplest building blocks of a day can be.
“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”- Betty Smith, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”