Last year I went to the Lionshead Film Festival to support an acquaintance’s short film. 50 films were screened at this festival, with runtimes ranging from 1 minute to 1 hour and 34 minutes. I only stayed to watch 7 of them:
Windowless
This was playing when I came in and I missed half of it, but it reminded me of Room.
Picawalico
A very charming short featuring puppets. It was about a miniature man named Picawalico who lived in an elderly woman’s house, where horrible things kept happening to him. A few minutes too long, perhaps, but I liked it a lot, even if it was a bit depressing. The person seated behind me certainly didn’t think so, though; he laughed loudly at each and every one of Picawalico’s hardships.
The Apple & The Serpent
This was an abstract music video filmed almost entirely in a park. I’m not really sure how to interpret it, but given the title, it has something to do with the story of Adam and Eve. The weakest of the seven films.
The Last Journey of the Enigmatic Paul W.R
A confusing French science fiction film. It was about a telepathic man named Paul WR, and people kept telling him to go to Mars but he didn’t want to. Then finally, at the end, he decides to go. Paul WR? More like Paul WTF. It had a high budget, so it was definitely on a completely different level, production value-wise, compared to the other films. We learned at the conclusion of the screening, learned that it was going to get a feature length adaptation.
The full, 17-minute short is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Kids Who Jump Off Bridges
A Canadian short about a nice girl who falls in with the wrong crowd and becomes a hardcore partier so she can get popular on social media. Ehh, nothing special. There was a scene at what looked like a Costco that was nicely lit with clear vivid colors. The rest of the film took place in dark, uninviting apartment rooms.
Kam
This one’s about a shy, socially awkward guy who sucks at dating but then meets a girl who helps him get out of his shell. The filmmaker was in the audience with his family and he answered questions after the screening. I forgot how it came up, but in one of his answers, he said that he always wanted to be a Power Ranger. Something I could relate to.
Cataclysmic Iridescence
The film I came here for: a music video showing a bunch of kids growing up in abusive households, then growing up to become abusive themselves. Then time goes backwards and they’re kids again and they go on different life paths to become better adults. Overall well done.
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