Raindance 2020: Short Films

A selection of short films of potential interest to Warped Perspective readers…

We have always tried to champion the world of short film: these interesting calling cards often appear at film festivals and then rarely again, which is a shame – and unfair. A festival like Raindance won’t automatically be curated for horror tastes – not that this is necessarily a bad thing, either – but here are some of the shorts which I’ve liked so far this year.

Into the Silver Ether (d. Vito A. Rowlands) is a suitably murky, ominous film about a young woman posing for a professional photograph at a studio. The as-yet unseen photographer scrabbling through existing photographs gives a clue that all is not as it seems here; the camera and photography become something monstrous, blending old anxieties about photos ‘taking your soul’ and other beliefs about what photos could reveal. This is a decent attempt at contemporary-looking film stock with a simple, but creepy atmosphere. Also a very atmospheric film, Enfer (d. Duilio Scalici) is more a triumph of creating something stylish against sizable odds, shot during lockdown with only those materials readily available to the director. It’s an artistic titbit, but very artistic at that, with beautifully-lurid colour and some nice shots of symbolic objects intended to point to the relationship between the devil and the world.

Were the last few minutes not such an unwelcome disruption of what came before, I’d be nominating Graindelavoix: St Anthony’s Fire (d. Sebastian Pancyzk) as one of my favourite short films of the year. This has a wonderful, folk horror feel – which was always going to appeal to me – based on the hallucinogenic effects of ergot, a wheat mould which has been linked to visions, witchcraft and the darker art of the medieval period. Whilst this is eventually revealed to have a 20th Century setting, it feels older than that because of its links to earlier time periods (and the visions themselves could just as easily be from an earlier century). The sea as a field of grain – or vice versa – looks incredible. Not a narrative as such, this is nonetheless very stark and beautiful.

Ghost Eye (d. Wouter Sel and Thijs De Cloedt) is an unusual animated short which successfully channels the Charles Bukowski style of commenting on the lowest ebb of urban life. Its narrator first recalls bullying a little girl called ‘Ghost Eye’, but coming unstuck, humiliating himself in front of others. This seems to have set the tone for the rest of his life, as a deadbeat taxi driver, sharing his home with various other outsiders and narrating their stories – which all happen to include plenty of ultraviolence and hallucination (it can’t be a coincidence that so many of the films I’ve been watching of late seem to have people in various altered states: 2020, mate). Ghost Eye seems to include a gag from The League of Gentlemen, but that’s no bad thing. This is a decently dour little film. Just a Guy (d. Shoko Hara), another animation, is a brief glimpse into the lives of three women who were all penpals with serial killer Richard Ramirez – with one of them (Eva O of Christian Death) rather more seriously involved than that, regularly visiting Ramirez at one time. The animated style here isn’t really to my tastes, but the inclusion of the letters themselves are fascinating, and there’s some insight as to what drew these women to him in their own words. I feel like I’ve spied into an uncomfortable personal history, albeit that the women involved are very frank and – at this point in time – equipped to reflect on their experiences.

As a palate-cleanser from all of that, The Last Video Store (d. Arthur Cauty) is a heart-warming note to end on. This short documentary looks at the now-legendary 20th Century Flicks, now the world’s longest-running video store. I used to live in Bristol, UK – where the shop is based – and I remember it well. What I didn’t know is that Flicks houses around 20,000 films, beating even Netflix’s current total, and this film makes some great points about the ways in which the streaming sites have changed the ways we watch and enjoy cinema and TV. For its pains, Flicks once made a grand profit of £24 in a whole year. But it’s clear that the owners take their elected roles as custodians very seriously, and this is not something they plan to give up. Their survival is remarkable, their importance is vital, and long may they continue. I would happily watch a feature-length about this place!