Shorts: Masters

Description

Reflecting on his short film The Fall, Jonathan Glazer quotes another master filmmaker, Anthony Minghella, who said that a short film should be like a perfect sentence. And the sentences that these eight directors craft are impeccable indeed. In addition to The Fall, the program includes new work by Jem Cohen, Yorgos Lanthimos, Guy Maddin (with Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson), and Martin Rejtman, and a restored re-release of Djibril Diop Mambéty’s final film that played in the Festival in 1999.

Total running time 97 min
Titles are listed alphabetically rather than in order of play.

The Fall
Director Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin, 2013) had held the image of a man with a noose around his neck in his head for a long time; it led to this frightening short reflecting on mob mentality. His other heady inspirations include a photo of Eric and Donald Trump posing with a dead leopard, a Bertolt Brecht poem, and Goya’s self-portrait The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.
(Jonathan Glazer, UK 2019, 6 min)

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun
This was to be Mambéty’s second film of a trilogy called Tales of Little People, but it is his last film. This is the only sad note, however, in this loving yet unsentimental “hymn to the courage of street children.” Feisty and fearless Sili sets out to earn a living by hawking the newspaper Le Soleil, the only girl in a sea of boys. She gets around on crutches and joins the many who live on the street — a community just as likely to be generous and supportive as brutal. –Cornelius Moore, Festival 1999
Note: This film has been restored in 2K in 2019 by Waka Films with the support of the Cinémathèque Afrique of the Institut Français and the CNC at Éclair Laboratories from the original negative.
(Djibril Diop Mambéty, Senegal 1999, 45 min)

Makeshift (For Mekas)
Jem Cohen (POV Award, Festival 2013) pays tribute to friend and mentor Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) in this elegiac short.
(Jem Cohen, USA 2019, 7 min)

Nimic
Matt Dillon stars as a cellist whose encounter with a woman on the subway changes his life in unforeseen ways. Lanthimos (The Favourite, 2018) reflected on making the film by saying, “I was glad to be given the opportunity to work on a shorter format that can be sometimes challenging but quite rewarding … We developed a script starting from a very intriguing initial idea and concept, and enjoyed great creative freedom during the realization of the film. It is always very exciting to be invited to think outside the box and wrestle with stimulating ideas.”
(Yorgos Lanthimos, USA 2019, 12 min)

The Rabbit Hunters
Guy Maddin and collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson celebrate Fellini’s centenary with this effusive short commissioned by BAMPFA.
(Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, USA/Canada 2020, 7 min)

Shakti
On the day his grandmother dies, a Buenos Aires slacker breaks up with his girlfriend, but has the good fortune to meet someone new. Director and Festival regular Rejtman (Two Shots Fired, Festival 2015) calls his first short in over 30 years a story of “depression, Hare Krishnas, Passover, and potato knishes.”
(Martin Rejtman, Argentina/Chile 2019, 20 min)