Stung

This affecting short by Chris Hooper is excellent and clearly marks him out as a talent to watch.

The story concerns an elderly beekeeper, reflecting on how her love affair with the insects began as a child and grew through her adolescence.

In terms of look and content this film is excellent. Hooper and his director of photography Basil Smith have created a lovely washed-out palette for scenes in which the beekeeper is shown as a child of the Fities and teen of the Seventies. As she recalls sporadic incidents from her past - teaching the dog to "piss in the flowerbeds" to ruin her mum's prize blooms, falling in love, the first time she was stung - the voice-over is accompanied by images of her as a child, though not always directly related to the event about which she is speaking.

Hooper locks into the idea of memory as disjointed, multi-layered and episodic in the same way Terence Davies did in Distant Voices, Still Lives. His images recall emotion as much as fact and leave you wanting to see more.

Out to own as part of the Final Cut: Take Three DVD short film collection.