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Edinburgh International Film Festival · 2021

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2021

Shorts

Programme

63 films · 5 reviews

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Aberración Cromática

Collage film observing a woman making a screen print of herself.

(Country: Colombia, France; Year: 2020; Director: Andrés Baron)

Black Box: Interruptions

Affairs Of The Art

Review preview for Affairs Of The Art

The film is a love letter to the sort of women too often squeezed out of cinema.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A family is obsessed with everything from drawing to taxidermy.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Joanna Quinn; Writer: Les Mills; Stars: Menna Trussler, Brendan Charleson, Joanna Quinn, Mali Ann Rees)

Full review

Family Values

Allowed

An animated lockdown walk through Cardiff during the first Covid-19 wave, re-examining our relationship with urban plant life in the context of biodiversity loss and climate crisis.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Zillah Bowes)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

An Taigh Solais

An elderly shepherd and her sheep get trapped in a mysterious lighthouse and they must find a way out before time runs out.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Alina Brust)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

Are You Still Watching?

In the midst of Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdown, Jamie finds reprieve from the monotony of isolation through their imagination, sensuality and some help from iconic onscreen queer characters.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2021; Director: Alex Cardy, Kitty Chrystal, Tali Polichtuk)

Imaginings

Autofiction (Autoficcion)

Borrowing its name from the title of a literary genre, the film recognises the indeterminacy of both fiction and of the being.

(Country: Spain, United States, New Zealand; Year: 2020; Director: Laida Lertxundi; Writer: Laida Lertxundi)

Black Box: Interconnections

BA

Sasha grew up in a city in Soviet Kazakhstan and takes refuge in the imaginary world of books and music.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2020; Director: Svetlana Flippova)

Family Values

The Bayview

Review preview for The Bayview

It's one where the camera less becomes a fly on the wall than a sleeping dog in front of the fireplace, one where the comfort of the subjects gives us a better insight into them.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
A glimpse into the world of a family who have turned the previously derelict hotel into a place of respite for international fishermen when they come to land.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Daniel Cook)

Full review

Bridging The Gap: Mobile

Born In Damascus

Review preview for Born In Damascus

This is meditative, melancholy, moving.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
After ten years apart, a Scottish filmmaker tries to reconnect with her closest cousin after their paths were separated by war.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Laura Wadha)

Full review

Bridging The Gap: Mobile

Bound

Drama sees two young people navigating the ultimate walk of shame.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Joe Carter)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

C (Alleswasichberühre)

In a constant search for closeness, C experiences emotions in all their highs and lows.

(Country: Switzerland; Year: 2020; Director: Marion Täschler)

Imaginings

Candy Can

The story of a child saved by imagination from a rotten, abusive reality.

(Country: Romania; Year: 2020; Director: Anton Octavian)

Imaginings

The Dog With Wings (7)

A family of 4 attempt to uncover sensitive issues about each other, through solving a cryptic crossword puzzle.

(Year: 2020; Director: Sanjana Chandrasekhar)

Family Values

Dreamscape

Sophie finds herself in a dazzling sea of images, set adrift in her subconscious. Where is she going?

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Emer Gallagher)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

Evening Plans

The small story of a big night.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

Fart Car

An exploration of grief, as a young man tells us the story of the eventful night of his first kiss with a boy.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Fraser Scott; Writer: Fraser Scott; Stars: Michael Ahomka-Lindsay)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

The Fourfold

Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and wisdom.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2020; Director: Alisi Telengut; Writer: Alisi Telengut)

Family Values

Further Radical

Experimental film using slices of black radish on unexposed film.

(Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Stefano Canapa)

Black Box: Interruptions

Ghosts

In the boredom of life, they became ghosts. The crows are after them.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2020; Director: Park Jee-youn)

Imaginings

The Grove

Zoe was found murdered four months ago. The case ran cold. Suspicions point to the original detective, now himself deceased. But could the real killer be hiding in plain sight?

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Craig Brownie, Nathaniel Duff)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

The Hangman At Home

What does an executioner think about when he comes home after a hard day's work?

(Country: France, Denmark, Canada; Year: 2021; Director: Michelle Kranot Uri Kranot)

Family Values

Have A Nice Dog

Trapped in Damascus, surrounded by war, a lonely man becomes increasingly lost in his fantasies of fleeing and the inner dialogues with his dog.

(Country: Germany, Syria; Year: 2020; Director: Jalal Maghout; Writer: Jalal Maghout; Stars: Hoda El-Sharkawy, Lucas Englander, Karsten Matern, Hoda El-Sharkawy, Lucas Englander, Karsten Matern)

Imaginings

How A Sprig Of Fir Would Replace A Feather

Employing devices of close examination and tactile visual engagement to natural history specimens, brings both illumination and regenerative energy to these exquisite artefacts.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Anna Kipervaser)

Black Box: Interruptions

Jambo Cinema

A short film about a video rental shop in 1980s Wolverhampton, bringing a lost world back to life.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Dawinder Bansal; Writer: Dawinder Bansal)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Keith Water

Stop-motion story about a small river.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Izzy Gibbs)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Kkum

Animated short.

(Country: US, South Korean; Year: 2020; Director: Kangmin Kim; Writer: Kangmin Kim; Stars: Kangmin Kim, Joung-Soon Park, Kangmin Kim, Joung-Soon Park)

Family Values

Kopierwerk

The cinema is a machine. Kopierwerk testifies to that.

(Year: 2019; Director: Stefanie Weberhofer)

Black Box: Interruptions

The Last Days

In a near-future world where you can discover your Death Day, an apolitical woman learns that she and many black people have been given incorrect dates and seeks justice before her time runs out - that same day.

(Year: 2020; Director: Dipo Baruwa-Etti)

Visions

‎Le Rêve

The raven dreams of nature, he dreams of a world of plants and insects. He travels, flies into nature. He is nature itself. Nature itself dreams into trance.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2020; Director: Peter Conrad Beyer)

Black Box: Interconnections

Lost Child Reel

A process of filmic translation, exploring the layers of oral tradition bound into vernacular American folk music forms, set in motion through an ingenious overlapping of analogue and digital processes.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Rhys Morgan)

Black Box: Interruptions

Lussevaka

At a bustling Lucia dinner party, a young girl, ignored and patronised by the adult conversation around her, forms an unspoken bond with an equally excluded elderly lady across the table. Stirring supernatural forces, they find their own means of escaping the gathering.

(Country: UK, Sweden; Year: 2020; Director: Johanna Sutherland)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

A Month Of Single Frames

A film made from footage shot by Barbara Hammer during a one-month artist residency, which she gave to Sachs and invited her to make a film with.

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Lynne Sachs; Writer: Lynne Sachs)

Black Box: Interconnections

Moving Out Through Stars

An animated journey through queerness, joy and transformation, inspired by the poetry and scrapbooks of Edwin Morgan - Scotland’s first National Poet.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Holly Summerson)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

My Favorite Software Is Being Here

Animation centred on a woman's isolated existence.

(Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Alison Nguyen)

Visions

Noonwraith Blues

Presence, memory and ancient folkloric sensibilities latent within the fabric of the landscape are evoked through gesture, ritual and physical interaction with the filmstrip.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2020; Director: Kamila Kuc)

Black Box: Interruptions

Octavia's Visions

Animation inspired by the Parables of the African-American futurist author Octavia E Butler.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2021; Director: Zara Zandieh)

Visions

Of This Beguiling Membrane

The story unfolds on the Eve of Midsummer: on the day when the threshold between worlds is porous, and an idle gesture can tempt fate.

(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Charlotte Pryce)

Black Box: Interconnections

One For The Road

Ceri has to pack up her whole deeply rooted life in the seaside town of Penporth to meet the evacuation date set by the government, as the coastal defences crumble under ever-rising sea levels.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Eileen Tracey)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Only Yesterday

An imagined alternate world where the island and community of Tonga was unaffected by colonialism, shown through the eyes of two leiti’s living in Aotearoa.

(Country: New Zealand; Year: 2020; Director: Sione Monū)

Visions

Opal

A teenage boxer tries to fill her idolised and abusive father's space in the family after his sudden passing.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Kirsty McLean)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Precious Hair & Beauty

An ode to the mundanity of and the community found on the high street, told through the window of an African hair salon.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: John Ogunmuyiwa; Writer: John Ogunmuyiwa; Stars: Michael Akinsulire, Adjani Salmon, Mamad Heidari, Adé Dee Haastrup, Tomi Ogunjobi, Jessica Bay, Kemi Lofinmakin, Olu Adaeze, Kafayat Adegoke, Deenie Davies, Xanthi Ncube, Michael Akinsulire, Adjani Salmon, Mamad Heidari, Adé Dee Haastrup)

Visions

Prosopagnosia

Exploration of face-blindness.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Steven Fraser)

Bridging The Gap: Mobile

Push This Button If You Begin To Panic

Bartholomew Whisper went to the doctor today. There he met administrators keen on experimental surgery, and lonely MRI machines. At least the growing hole in his head was becoming quite beautiful.

(Country: UK, Switzerland; Year: 2020; Director: Gabriel Böhmer; Writer: Gabriel Böhmer)

Imaginings

Redbird And Other Birds

Essay film set around a small suburban aiport.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2019; Director: Julieta María)

Black Box: Interconnections

Rough

Post-conflict paramilitaries, in Northern Ireland, enforce brutal street justice “punishment” attacks. But when they pass a death sentence on a local dog, they bite off more than they can handle

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Adam Patterson, Declan Lawn)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Run With Her

Documentary about a teenage endurance runner and her shifting relationships.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Lia Campbell)

Bridging The Gap: Mobile

SEA 404

How does postmodern engagement with technology mediate our bodily experience of, and interaction with, the natural world?

(Country: US; Year: 2019; Director: Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, Michael Pisaro)

Black Box: Interruptions

Shagbands

In the summer heatwave of 2006, a gang of teenage girls in south London face strange sexual awakenings and a discovery of violence.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Luna Carmoon; Writer: Luna Carmoon; Stars: Ruby Stokes, Frankie Box, Demi Butcher, Leila Katia McCalla, Alex Draper, Tommy Hunt, Juan O'Carroll, Frankie Wilson, Ruby Stokes, Frankie Box, Demi Butcher, Leila Katia McCalla, Alex Draper, Tommy Hunt, Juan O'Carroll)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

The Shift

Review preview for The Shift

Russell-Martin - whose background is on stage, featuring in productions with Glasgow's Citizens Theatre among others - makes an impact in her film debut.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
An agency worker gets bad news while she's shopping.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: Laura Carreira; Writer: Laura Carreira; Stars: Anna Russell-Martin)

Full review

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Signal 8

They said a storm is calling this way but we’re still waiting. Lives carry on in Hong Kong as traces of civic upkeep morph into sites of remembrance.

(Country: Hong Kong; Year: 2019; Director: Simon Liu)

Black Box: Interconnections

Silvering

A woman’s spiral into panic after discovering a grey hair.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Eilidh Nicoll)

Imaginings

Soft Animals

Two ex-lovers bump into each other at a train station.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Renee Zhan; Writer: Renee Zhan; Stars: Paul Panting, Joanna Ruiz)

Imaginings

Soothe

A young woman struggles to find a work-life balance. Presented with the world’s leading meditation app, can she finally get a break?

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Rowan Abbott, Poppy Payne)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition

Souvenir Souvenir

For ten years I pretended I wanted to get my grandfather to share his memories of the Algerian War. Today, I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say, or whether I want to make this film at all.

(Country: France; Year: 2020; Director: Bastien Dubois)

Imaginings

Step Tnto The River

Animated fable about the consequences of China’s one-child policy.

(Country: China; Year: 2020; Director: Weijia Ma)

Family Values

Stop Nineteen

Review preview for Stop Nineteen

Brings home the fact that one person's tourism may be adding to another person's trauma.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Consideration of the tourist industry that has sprung up around places associated with The Troubles.

(Country: UK, Ireland; Year: 2020; Director: Danielle Swindells)

Full review

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

Stripes

A playful, Dada inspired exploration of optics and the surface of the image.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2019; Director: Ann Oren)

Black Box: Interruptions

Tang Jër

Fantastical short set in a mysterious restaurant.

(Country: Senegal; Year: 2020; Director: Selly Raby Kane)

Visions

Thorax

Cinema is a trick of the light, and Fruhauf harnesses the restless curiosity of early cinematic innovation to evoke a perceptual journey into the macro depths of cosmic abstraction.

(Year: 2019; Director: Siegfried A. Fruhauf)

Black Box: Interruptions

Tri-Alogue #4

Three filmmakers, one roll of film.

(Country: US; Year: 2020; Director: Caryn Cline, Linda Fenstermaker, Reed O'Beirne; Stars: Emily Durand, Emily Durand)

Black Box: Interconnections

Verisimilitude

An unemployed disabled actress watches all the disabled acting jobs go to able bodied actors. She is engaged as an advisor to a spoilt up and coming British film star, showing him how to be disabled for his latest role.

(Country: UK; Year: 2020; Director: David Proud; Writer: Justin Edgar; Stars: Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe, Simon Lowe, Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith, Laurie Davidson, Alice Lowe, Simon Lowe, Ruth Madeley, Esther Smith)

Short Cuts: Views From The Four Nations

West Country

A portrait of labour and land in the West Country, told with reflections from local 13-year-old Conor.

(Country: UK; Year: 2021; Director: Rowan Ings)

Bridging The Gap: Mobile

You Will Never Walk Alone

The film’s director ventures into memories of her childhood in conservative, catholic Poland to reflect on the 2020 abortion ban and the powerful rebellion that came after.

(Country: UK, Poland; Year: 2021; Director: Jagoda Tiok)

EIFF Youth New Visions Short Film Competition