Short film review archive

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C — 111 results

• "C" (2003)

  Experimental film finds art in nature
• Cadet (2013)

  Review preview for Cadet

  Writer and director Kevin Meul's humour has an edge so barbed it sinks in like a shoe spike and sticks.

  A youngster is trained for a big race by his ultra-competitive dad.
• Cages (2009)

  Review preview for Cages

  All involved can hold their heads up high.

  An old man walks through the desert checking his traps for food, but something else is stalking him.
• Cailleach (2014)

  Review preview for Cailleach

  Beautifully shot, aided by beautiful country, there's mist and rain, birds on a wire, and real humour too.

  Portrait of a crofter.
• Cake And Steak (2004)

  Review preview for Cake And Steak

  It's compelling, haunting, meaningless - it's all projection, these juxtapositions, it's a kaleidoscope of noise and image, and yet, within it, pattern.

  A questioning of the American dream and archetypal American nuclear family. Part one of The Suburban Trilogy.
• Call It A Night (2013)

  Review preview for Call It A Night

  It's competently made, genuinely funny in places, but not consistently funny enough to make it a must see.

  A gang have to solve a murder to restore peace on their housing estate.
• Camouflage (2012)

  Review preview for Camouflage

  Lydia Adetunji's script is neatly structured, not only managing to imply that answers we're given aren't entirely the truth in both directions, but also creating an air of creeping fear.

  A make-up artist who specialises in helping patients conceal scars finds herself helping to hide a bigger secret.
• Canopy Crossings (2010)

  Review preview for Canopy Crossings

  This is a slight film, but that's not problematic because of its greatest feature; it is suffused with colour, saturated, possessed of a tremendous sense of place.

  Three people working in a local market dream of bigger things, but everything must stop eight times a day to pull down the canopy and make way for passing trains.
• Canvas (2007)

  Review preview for Canvas

  A striking little tale.

  Stop-motion animation about an artist and his increasingly disturbing work. Showing at EIFF 2007 in World Animation 1.
• Capicúa (2010)

  Review preview for Capicúa

  The film makes thoughtful use of visual imagery to draw comparisons.

  A different way of looking at senility and Alzheimer's disease.
• Capturing Space (2008)

  Review preview for Capturing Space

  Capturing Space simply doesn't do what its title suggests.

  A small mood-piece on Kensington's famous landmark - Trellick Tower
• Caretaker For The Lord (2009)

  Review preview for Caretaker For The Lord

  With excellent sound work, a keen eye and a good subject, this is a lovely piece of documentary.

  A documentary about the community in a neglected Glasgow church and their struggle for survival.
• Cargo (2007)

  Review preview for Cargo

  Viewer expectations, like that of the immigrants, are confounded as the hard-hitting consequences of this bleak act of humanity play out.

  A trafficked boy is saved from his fate, but is the alternative any less bleak?
• Cargo (2013)

  Review preview for Cargo

  Cargo is impressive in developing a picture of the wider world that surrounds this very personal story.

  A stranded man who knows he will soon become a zombie concocts a plan to save his baby daughter.
• Cariño (2013)

  Review preview for Cariño

  Visceral stuff this, back-woods and isolated, gory and horrifying.

  A tale of love and torture in an isolated location.
• Carlitopolis Redux (2006)

  A lab mouse gets into a tight squeak.
• The Case (2013)

  Review preview for The Case

  Technically this is excellent.

  An exploration of imagery and ideas related to crime.
• Catzilla (2010)

  Review preview for Catzilla

  Talk about furry vengeance.

  A fluffy kitten dreams of rampaging through a city.
• The Cat Piano (2009)

  Review preview for The Cat Piano

  The narration by Nick Cave lends this film a creepiness that goes way beyond the scope of its central poem.

  In a city of singing cats, a lonely beat poet falls for a beautiful siren. When a mysterious dark figure emerges, kidnapping the town’s singers for his twisted musical plans, the poet must save his muse and put an end to the nefarious tune.
• The Cage (2009)

  Review preview for The Cage

  Good intentions abound, consequences too.

  A son brings home an injured dove.
• Calf (2023)

  Review preview for Calf

  The pace of life on a farm is slow, and despite the urgency of this particular situation, O’Rourke recognises that in his direction, allowing viewers time to take in the landscape that dominates the routines of the characters.

  A brutal farm accident leaves a teenager faced with a painful decision.
• Camp Confidential: America's Secret Nazis (2021)

  Review preview for Camp Confidential: America's Secret Nazis

  Moral questions hang heavy in the air about whether ends can justify means and Loushy and Sivan ensure the soldiers' experience is kept front and centre.

  Jewish soldiers recount their roles at a top-secret military camp for Nazi scientists.
• Can We Really Know Anything About Carrots? (2023)

  Review preview for Can We Really Know Anything About Carrots?

  One might be tempted to ask it to describe in single words only the good things that come into its mind about its mother.

  An experiment with artificial intelligence, looking at the world from a different perspective.
• Can You Hear Me? (2021)

  Review preview for Can You Hear Me?

  Can You Hear Me? manages not just to tell a satisfying story but in continuing action over its credits to create a coda that grants a different depth.

  Jhong wakes up and finds himself dead. He watches his family dealing with his death over breakfast. Although his wife can’t hear him, she can somehow comprehend what is on his mind.
• Carbon (2012)

  Review preview for Carbon

  A kind of narrative pareidola.

  A series of awkward encounters causes escalating tension.
• Cardboard (2025)

  Review preview for Cardboard

  The 3D animation is full of personality.

  When an overwhelmed single dad pig moves his piglets into a trailer park, he fears he's failed his family. But soon his kids create a wildly imaginative game.
• Carl's Date (2023)

  Review preview for Carl's Date

  There's something bittersweet about it, differently so than Up.

  Carl Fredricksen reluctantly agrees to go on a date with a lady friend, but has no idea how dating works these days. Ever the helpful friend, Dug steps in to calm Carl's pre-date jitters and offer some tried-and-true tips for making friends - if you're a dog.
• Carved (2018)

  Review preview for Carved

  The scenes of violence are beautifully choreographed and edited.

  Preparing a pumpkin for Halloween has unexpected results
• Catcalls (2017)

  Review preview for Catcalls

  Catcalls is billed as horror but will be, for many viewers, more of an antidote to a horror that's part of day to day life.

  A man picks the wrong stranger to expose himself to.
• Cerulia (2017)

  Review preview for Cerulia

  There are intersections of scale and scope - a chair in the greenhouse, what lies hidden beneath the leaves - moments of delight as simple as heterochromatic twins and complex geographies of houses sold and unsold.

  Cerulia returns to her childhood home to find that it is haunted by her memories.
• Chaar Diwaari (2026)

  Review preview for Chaar Diwaari

  A high concept piece of work delivered with skill.

  A tenant moves into a too good to be true Mumbai apartment only to realise that the house is shrinking in size.
• Champ (2021)

  Review preview for Champ

  Gorgeously shot by Oren Soffer, Ben Tricklebank's Oscar-qualifying short is rich in atmosphere and features an impressively controlled performance from its young star.

  A teenager struggles with his dad's ideas about the sort of behaviour that will make him a proper man.
• Chasing Time (2024)

  Review preview for Chasing Time

  This film, like its longer predecessor, brings home the alarming rate at which this is happening.

  After bringing some of the first and most striking visual evidence of our changing planet to the fore through the groundbreaking study of melting glaciers, photographer James Balog returns to Iceland to close the last chapter of his life’s work.
• Checkpoint (2010)

  Review preview for Checkpoint

  The heart of the film is Abdallah El Akal as Suleiman.

  An 11-year-old Palestinian boy accompanies his father on regular trips to a ruined Gaza village, though he doesn't understand their purpose.
• Chiffon (2021)

  Review preview for Chiffon

  There is much to admire here beyond the immediate perceptions, sensibilities too.

  Bijoli is serene until a mysterious visitor shows up in her small tailoring shop with a commission.
• Children No More: Were And Are Gone

  Review preview for Children No More: Were And Are Gone

  Enters a morally fraught space with admirable clarity

  Documentary follows Israeli silent vigil protests over the war in Gaza.
• Chuchotage (2018)

  Review preview for Chuchotage

  Gently paced with likeable leads and sharply observant camerawork, Chuchotage is the sort of comedy that works because it's so easy to identify with.

  During a professional conference in Prague, two interpreters in the Hungarian booth realise that only one person is listening to them. They vie for her attention.
• Clodagh (2024)

  Review preview for Clodagh

  The film finds a sly humour in its observations of Mrs Kelly’s dilemma, of the quietly frantic way in which she wrestles with a conscience at odds with the rigid system she has chosen to live by.

  A lonely church housekeeper encounters a young Irish girl of exceptional promise.
• Coffined At 15 (2022)

  Review preview for Coffined At 15

  This is not just a story of suffering, but one of resistance.

  15-year-old Rihana is put into a coffin at the hands of her father to be sold off to an old Taliban soldier.
• Coins (2021)

  Review preview for Coins

  At every interaction the possibility of gleam is replaced with the certainty of grime.

  A neurotic waitress with a phobia of coins fights to control her darkest fears, as her reality falls apart.
• Cold Cut (2024)

  Review preview for Cold Cut

  Mysterious in a manner that is thought-provoking rather than ostentatious

  Joy, a 19-year-old student, is about to compete at the local talent show. As she's about to enter the audition, a mysterious butcher takes her to unknown horizons.
• Colette (2020)

  Review preview for Colette

  Giacchino makes all the right choices. He gives the women room physical and emotional space, pulling the camera back rather than crowding in.

  A former French resistance fighter visits the concentration camp where her brother died for the first time.
• Color Film (2009)

  Review preview for Color Film

  A sensory treat for the eyes.

  Exploring the relationship between colours and the words we use to describe them.
• The Comet (2026)

  Review preview for The Comet

  The 2D artwork, which uses oil pastel, gives the animation a "shimmering" style that fills every frame with movement

  Eight-year-old Émile is enjoying the last of the warm summer evenings with his sister Françoise. While they are eagerly scanning the night sky for shooting stars, they are suddenly interrupted by a despicably cruel act.
• A Companion for Amateur Cinematographers: Vol. I (2022)

  Review preview for A Companion for Amateur Cinematographers: Vol. I

  Federico Di Corato's film is, as is often the case with documentary, self-reflexive.

  Against the backdrop of Italy in the years of the Fascist dictatorship, a man of wealth but unknown to history scrutinises the world with his little film camera, guided by a handbook.
• Compulsion (2024)

  Review preview for Compulsion

  There’s an action sequence towards the end which is among the director’s best.

  Two women's lives become entwined as one of them hatches a scheme to rob the other, while a serial killer stalks the men of Malta.
• A Concerto Is A Conversation (2021)

  Review preview for A Concerto Is A Conversation

  Beyond the immediate relationship between Kris and Horace, this is also a love letter to the importance of familial support and grandparents everywhere.

  Composer Kris Bowers talks to his grandfather Horace about his life.
• Concrete Rodents (2024)

  Review preview for Concrete Rodents

  Working as his own cinematographer, Gkanatsios turns up the atmosphere with the inky blues, aquamarine greens and high neons of night.

  A group of friends embark on a risky plan.
• The Confirmation (2019)

  Review preview for The Confirmation

  In a short space of time, Confirmation does a powerful job of exploring the competing needs of mother and son.

  The day of a trans boy's Christian confirmation ceremony is stressful for him and his mother in different ways.
• The Consequences Of Feminism (1906)

  Review preview for The Consequences Of Feminism

  The real strength of the film is in the way it points up gender role differences that go unnoticed because people are so used to them.

  Observations of daily life in a world where men's and women's roles are reversed.