This ended up being a very fitting banner to put all these films under as the seven shorts I saw explored love, sex, romantic affection and dating in a variety of dark and off-kilter ways. Chairs by James Hughes and Hello by Mac Montero were both very comedic, showing strange romantic affections in exaggerated ways that amused the entire audience, but they really just felt like warm-ups for some more hard-hitting shorts.
Ciara Kerr’s Homemaker was an animated piece about a toxic relationship which used disturbing visual metaphors and rhyming dialogue to tell a story in a really affecting way, and Oz Arshad explored finding love after loss in his fantastic short Opening Up. The presentation ended with Hjördís Jôhannsdôttir’s The Bride and Katia Shannon’s Us & Between, and it was interesting to see these two shorts back-to-back, as one focused on a young couple just before their wedding and the other saw two elderly people finally reuniting.
It was a very fun afternoon and I saw some great films by very talented filmmakers.
The highlight for me though was the fifth short - Sister Wives. Directed by Louisa Connolly-Burnham, this short is very much inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale and the overturning of Roe v Wade in America, and sees two young women (played by Burnham as well as Mia McKenna-Bruce) falling for each other in a strict patriarchal and polygamous society.
If, like me, you had a good childhood, you’ll remember Louisa Connolly-Burnham from CBBC’s Wolfblood and also Mia McKenna-Bruce from Tracy Beaker and The Dumping Ground. Seeing them working together on this short was great to behold and both are really fantastic here. This was my second time watching this short after seeing it on All4, but it was made even better by seeing it with an audience who also got sucked into the story.
The final Q&A was a very fun experience, but even better was meeting Louisa herself and getting to tell her how much I loved Sister Wives and how I grew up watching Wolfblood. It was a very fun afternoon and I saw some great films by very talented filmmakers.
If you attended any of the festival please let us know what you thought!
