The Holiday Shuffle

The Holiday Shuffle is a short film focused on an office gift exchange with drama, humour and miscommunications. Directed by and also starring Franklin Genao as CEO Sergio Marquez, with a screenplay by Zay Rodriguez. The Holiday Shuffle won two awards back in 2024 for best ensemble and best comedy short at the New Jersey Film awards.

Being in corporate meetings that feel like they will never end is something a lot of people can relate to. The Holiday Shuffle manages to ground itself in total realism with its environments to the characters themselves being authentic whilst also feeding into the holiday tropes. With the Christmas period being the most stressful time of year for many. The Holiday Shuffle manages to take that stress and turn it into a fun yet disastrous turn of events. With the rising concerns of a colleague messing with the secret santa seemingly being validated it all descends into chaos. A mischievous colleague decides to switch the secret Santa names, landing everyone with the wrong gift.

It throws you right into the deep end without any characters fully established or without much context. Making the viewer go on a journey to piece the clues together . Which normally would harm the film but with a small cast it doesn't take long to fill in the gaps. Audiences will find that it isn't difficult to get a read on these characters, their personalities and roles. Which is a credit to the actors and their ability to sell you this story. With humor sprinkled throughout it does feel like a holiday workplace comedy. There definitely is a warming aspect to this film: the sets are well decorated and feel like a genuine office space.

Unfortunately there are some flaws within this film that become very obvious to the audience. The viewer might notice the editing having some technical flow issues. Towards the end there started to be scenes where items vanished and then reappeared again. Which makes it disjointed for the story and jarring for the viewer. With a small budget you can only do so much but it was so noticeable it takes you right out of the scene and the film as your eyes seem to focus in on these items. Also for when characters were not the focal point of scenes they tended to over act with expressions. Which again is distracting to what the director is wanting us to concentrate on within the story.

There is a classic holiday comedy in there but unfortunately it doesn't quite hit the mark. With some highlights within the cast are Cristal Pulgini as Ines Gomes and Valentin Moya Jr as Gabriel Alvarado. Who both deliver quip remarks and help establish themselves as frontrunners within the cast. An indie film that is definitely worth expanding on and fleshing out. With an upcoming short film titled 'The Locked Room’ which will be written, directed and edited by Franklin which is due for release this year. Maybe with a bigger budget we could see great things from Franklin Genao.

You can watch The Holiday Shuffle in full on Youtube through Junito's Studios Channel.