After opening film An Imperfect Reflection by Oli Braybrook (which was reviewed as part of the NCN Showcase), came Coalescent Films’ Feiht, written and directed by Harry Wilding. The high-concept short film, with a score from Notts band Kogumaza, featured a mugging played in reverse in order to challenge the prejudices of the audience.
Following on was Anthony Winson’s Dark Light, a horror short in which three girls summon a lycanthropic beast, making nice use of lighting to build a sense of atmospheric tension.
One of my favourite films of the night followed with Damian Ebanks’ Fluffy. The dark comedy about a man systematically murdering scores of clowns using cruel and unusual methods in order to track down a bag combined humour and carnage to great effect.
Simon Dymond’s Big Criminals, which was written and shot over a period of just three days, told the story of a pair of bungling amateur thieves, whose heist of a local café ends in disaster after one of them forgets to bring the ski masks. Featuring a good lead performance from Peter Radford, it’s astutely paced, hitting its darkly comic beats sharply.
Lab Rats (reviewed as part of the Mayhem Film Festival Shorts) screened next, following its successful festival run in North America – which included winning Best Gore at Northern Frights in Canada. Tommy Draper’s Fade, in which a woman returns home to confront her unfaithful boyfriend, had an ethereal, supernatural quality to it that nicely counterbalanced the gory, action-packed Lab Rats that preceded it.
Lab Rats
Chris Bevan’s Hollow Men, set a reading of TS Eliot’s poem of the same name against a post-apocalyptic setting, in which a dreadlocked protagonist struggles through a deserted, mountainside wilderness. Shot by Nottingham DP Karl Poyzer, it combined free form cinematography that nicely juxtaposed its traditional poetic narration.
Stop/Eject, co-written by Tommy Draper and directed by Neil Oseman, told the story of a woman who, after seeing her fiancée killed, discovers she is able to control time with the use of a tape recorder in a mysterious shop. Shot in Derbyshire, the film deals with the subjects of grief, loss and acceptance, with a strong lead performance from Georgina Sherrington.
Next up was Tom Walsh’s Mam Tor, an 80-second experimental short that combined mesmeric, scenic footage with a reading of J. Alfred Prufrock’s The Love Song.
The penultimate film of the first Short Stack at Broadway came with Robert Dawes’ Freeze Frame. Shot at the QUAD cinema in Derby, this duologue featured two men discussing which of them has the best ‘freeze frame’ – a competition in which one of them has a distinct advantage over the other.
Short Stack was concluded by Vaughn Teufel’s ambitious and unique short film The Captain. Set in the seedy rooms of a working men’s club, The Captain cuts between an old-fashioned entertainer eating his balls on stage and a triumvirate of drunken locals at the bar. After one of the trio leaves her child alone to play with his toys as she looks to pull, the young boy is visited by a mystical figure known only as The Captain. Together, they look to take revenge on those distracting the woman from her motherly duties, teaching her a valuable lesson in the process. Aesthetically, it reminded me of a combination of Phoenix Nights and Chopper, gracefully making the everyday mundane look visually absorbing. Another of my favourite shorts of the evening.
Short Stack took place at Broadway Cinema on Sunday 15 May 2016.
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