I stuck to shorts again on Monday, checking out the Grow Up Already program of narrative films in the afternoon. Overall these coming-of-age movies were super impressive — Damià Serra’s “On The Roof” features a cast of great young actors dealing with sexuality, bullying and the personal dynamics that can become complicated and even violent when boys begin to become men. Samedi Cinema reminded me of movies about going to the movies like Cinema Paradiso with its story about a couple of young pals trying to raise enough money to score tickets to the last movie at a theater in a village in Senegal. I also liked James Dunstan’s “Spilt Milk”. I met Dunstan on rush line last Friday and have been comparing notes with him at the fest since then. I was glad to catch his movie about an abused girl who falls in love with her lifelong friend. It’s a heavy story that Dunstan tells with confident visual stylistics while coaxing solid performances from his cast of young adult and child actors. Ending short films can be a tricky task, and the finale here was too vague and overly sentimental for me, but it was one of the only false moments in an otherwise very impressive work. My favorite film in the group was “Emma.” This flick about a high school student losing her hair to alopecia completely surprised me as one of the best films I’ve seen at the fest. Emma is shot in gorgeous black-and-white, and it features a really impressive performance by Hailey Kittle from the 2nd Generation television series.
On Tuesday I’ll be checking out the evening screening of the Frayed Shorts. Here’s the trailer for “Actual Food Porn…”
More to come…
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