Filmmaker Interview by Chris Olson Hi Dan, thanks so much for speaking with us. Whereabouts in the world do we find you right now? I live in Southern California just outside of Los Angeles. What can you tell us about your documentary, EVERYBODY DANCE? I think it's ultimately about the power of artistic expression and why we all benefit when exposed to the Arts. EVERYBODY DANCE is a documentary that dives into the transformative world of art as it empowers and encourages children who are neurodivergent and/or have a disability. I follow five kids as they experience the thrill of movement and belonging while preparing for their dance recital. We share in their struggles and triumphs, (that ALL kids feel) - as they, along with their families and dance teacher, discover the rhythm of inclusivity and acceptance. By dancing, the children shake off isolation and the narrative of not being good enough. The arts are a great equalizer, allowing every child to discover the freedom of true self-expression. An inspiring journey of self-discovery, dedication, achievement and yes dance! Why did you want to make this documentary? My initial inspiration comes from my fascination with people who studied the Arts but didn’t pursue it as a profession. Did they acquire any tools that were helpful and applicable in their everyday lives? That was my jumping-off point. I then actually had a dream about two girls I taught dance to over 20 years ago who had autism - it was so clear and precise, that I took it as a message from beyond that I was being handed the way into my movie. I researched dance schools and conservatories all across the country and stumbled upon Ballet for All Kids and the owner & teacher Bonnie Schlachte. She was gracious to let me view a class and I knew that these were the stories that needed to be told. At Ballet for All Kids, the dance class is an actual 55-minute class - the kids are doing ballet barre work and learning classical ballet (other dance styles are also offered) and I wanted to talk with the parents and kids about how studying this art form has helped in everyday life. Did the discipline, repetitiveness, and structure of dance overflow into school and home? Those stories are explored in the film. Everybody Dance shares the stories of these families and kids in their own words about disabilities and neurodiversity, which may encourage empathy for some viewers and provides a lot of food for thought about the positivity of arts education and being a more inclusive society. What has the reception to Everybody Dance been like? I am humbled by the response. We have a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, 5 out of 5 stars by Comment Sense Media which focuses on rating films and TV for families and kids and we have been embraced by many organizations that focus and support the disabled community. Where can people see it next? We are lucky to be available on Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, iTunes, Venmo and most other streaming platforms. What's next for you in terms of filmmaking? I’m actually in the editing stage of my next documentary. I can’t say much yet but I am honoured to be working with Broadway Theatre Producer Daryl Roth, who is a seven-time Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of 13 Tony Awards and Oliver Awards. It’s gonna be great! Why do you make movies? When I was young I use to come home from school and watch Phil Donahue and Merv Griffin. I love to hear about people’s journeys, the good and bad that helped get them to where they are today. I get to talk directly with fascinating people as they share their triumphs, missteps and accomplishments as they reflect on who they are. I can’t think of a better job. Who would you love to make a movie with? I was lucky to have Morgan Spurlock hold my hand through this process. He answered my calls and offered words of encouragement and guidance when I started questioning myself - so we can cross him off the list as even today, he’s just a phone call away. I would love to sit down and chat with Ron Howard and Norman Lear who have accomplished so much and have stayed true to themselves along the way. #ChrisOlson #FilmmakerInterview

Directed and Written by: Todd Field Starring: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noemie Merlant. Film Review by Robert Stayte Director/Writer Todd Field’s first two films, In The Bedroom and Little Children, both heralded a new talent in American Cinema, but he then left feature filmmaking for 16 years. He returns finally with TÁR, a strange, dark and timely film worthy of a big return, being arguably his strongest work to date. In Germany, famed composer Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) lives with her wife (Nina Hoss) and daughter. Then once past actions start to sneak up on her and her pride and paranoia increase, her life goes into downfall. TÁR gets off to a slow start, but as it goes on the film’s not always conventional but clearly downfalling and unravelling narrative structure envelopes you, with a mix of reveals and unanswered questions. This character’s world is depicted with detail that another director/writer might have simplified but doing so makes us understand her and feel the weight of the story so much. There is a lot to think about in hindsight but even whilst it’s going on, the script raises thorny subject matter with subtlety yet also bite. Tár herself starts off as a talented and intriguing celebrity figure and carries herself professionally and politely, but then we see how much of a tyrant she can be in her professional world and how that seeps into her personal life, such as how though she loves her daughter unconditionally she still threatens her daughter’s bully in a questionable way. She is a repellent character, yet she is so interesting to watch and never once feels like an off-putting caricature. The film never forgets to show her predatory and narcissistic nature but also humanises her just enough yet not too much. The message one can read into is that whilst even a cultural icon might be a human being first and foremost, they do to some degree deserve to be punished for their bad deeds. Not to mention the whole notion of absolute power corrupting, which when you combine it with the art world is also the danger of giving too much power to brilliant creatives. Finally, you can also read a simpler view of how you shouldn’t behave badly because your mistakes will catch up to you eventually. The direction from Field is as precise as a composer, but as unstable as Tár herself, utilising a combination of long takes and quick editing that suit their sequences. There’s a strong sense of dread and fear, created via some creepy sequences spread throughout. There are some brief cutaways that when you make your way through the film do make a lot more sense ultimately, with really the only issue editing wise being that there are a couple of repetitive moments and the end does drag on a bit, but it does culminate in a totally fitting final scene. Finally, it would be remiss to not mention Cate Blanchett’s work in the lead role. Beyond the impressiveness of her being able to carry herself so naturally in these long takes, she humanises this character whilst remaining true to their nature. Her physical acting in particular deserves a lot of attention especially in the final hour, not to mention her breakdown moments that are big but earnest. TÁR is not for someone looking for a conventional narrative with a likeable lead, but to see such a challenging movie be made when another film could have covered similar subject matter in a blander way is a testament to Field’s talent that is thankfully no longer absent. Add in another artistic success for Blanchett and you have an experience you pondering for days after.

By Chris Olson 2023 is off to a bang and what better way to celebrate than delving into a brand new film podcast episode from UK Film Review? Well, there are probably some ways that are better but very few, especially with a retro horror classic being explored in The Scream Test - Jeepers Creepers! Join host Rachel and her guest Luke as they take a fun and light-hearted look at the 2001 horror film and discuss the other films in the franchise. The film podcast episode was recorded on Christmas Day and released on January 5th via all popular podcast platforms, so feel free to listen wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to subscribe, share, and review wherever possible. And drop a comment to us on social media if you have listened and what you thought. If you are already a fan of the UK Film Review Podcast, you may be aware of our other shows. Including The Fantom Zone - your go-to podcast for all things comic-book related. From their Nerd News to their exploration of the MCU and beyond, it's one of the best things to get in your ears (in our humble opinion). There is also the New Film Releases podcast, which recently reviewed Avatar: The Way of Water. Join the host Robert as he takes a look at the latest films being released in cinemas in the UK. For fans of queer cinema, there is the brilliant Gay, Actually podcast hosted by Amber and Joyce. Join their popular show and be sure to follow their official Instagram: @gay_actually We will be releasing new film podcasts in 2023 including an exciting new show called UK Film Club - where we want YOU, that's right, YOU to be involved. Whether you are a film fan, filmmaker, or just a UKFR lover (the latter of which is our personal favourite), we want to open up the chance to get you involved with our film podcast. Stay tuned for more details coming soon. Click the banner below to listen to the Jeepers Creepers episode now!

During LFF I was fortunate to get the opportunity to interview Cornish director Mark Jenkin about his latest film Enys Men (read my 5-star review here Enys Men Review | Film Reviews (ukfilmreview.co.uk)), which screened in-competition later that day. Currently, the director is on a UK-wide tour with the film, screening a series of films he has curated with the BFI - The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men, and the film is due to be released in the UK on Friday 13th January. We discuss all of the above in this lightly edited transcript of the interview as well as his working relationship with partner and Enys Men lead actor Mary Woodvine, the influence of Robert Bresson, his collaboration with Gwenno, a side-track into Cornish independence, and previous works Bait, and Hard, Cracked the Wind. This interview contains strong language. Given that the film offers a space to feel scared, upset and hopeless, is it cathartic for you to express that? Do you feel that as you are making it? Yeah, but not until the edit. The old cliché goes you make the film three times, you make it when you’re writing it, you make it when you shoot it, and you make it again when you edit it. For me, the most important version is the edited version, it’s the only one that an audience will see. After making Bait several people commented it almost felt like a horror film at times, there was a sense of forboding, that it was almost going to tip over into horror. And that got me interested in making what is nominally a horror film as the next film. I got really excited about writing the script but then I read the script back - I thought, “there is no horror in this” - because the horror came in the form. So I didn’t feel it in the writing, didn’t feel it in the shooting of it, because shooting it is such a fragmented process. It’s not like in theatre where you do a set piece and while it is going on it feels scary, it’s very technical. But certainly in the edit. I never think about the audience when making films at all. I don’t want to second guess what I think the audience is going to feel. When I’m making a film there is only an audience of one, me. So it’s edited to your tastes? Yeah, completely. I make films that I like, knowing that we’re all the same, ultimately. That doesn’t mean everybody is going to like the film, certainly not this particular film. But there will be enough people who think and feel like me who will connect with it. That’s always what I hope, whether or not that is delusional or not. One day it’ll be delusional. I’m sure one day I’ll make a film that only one person will like and that will be me. Is that a problem? No. No. As long as the people who fund the work don’t lose confidence and I get the chance to do another one. I have just seen the American trailer, I saw it when I was in America, and that was really interesting cause it made me really unsettled watching it. And that was a revelation. Wow, they’ve made something that feels unsettling, it was my material, but their edit. But you’ve made something that feels unsettling? Yeah, but when I watch it, I’m still so close to it, all I think is, “oh that was the day when…” But is it hard then to edit it to your tastes? When you edit it do you feel something watching it back or do you see the mechanics of it? Yes but the thing is, the most valuable thing in filmmaking is having distance, and it is the one thing that is not built into the process cause you have to deliver the film quickly. So you don’t have that distance which is why I think a lot of filmmakers traditionally work with editors cause other people bring in that distance. Whereas I love editing and I’m not willing to give up that part of the process, so I don’t have that built-in bit of distance in the process. Luckily with this one, I was beginning writing the next one while I was editing this one. So I had enforced breaks where I might not do anything for two weeks and go and write on this other film. And then I would go back and look, and I would really feel it. That bit that I thought was a jump scare was not really a jump scare at all, or that bit that I thought was quite dull, that was the unnerving bit. Sometimes I might watch it back after a couple of weeks and my sound desk is set up differently so one track might be faded higher than it should be, “oh actually that works, if that’s really low in the mix”. Formally, it’s not a subtle film. The sound goes clang and the shots go *clap*. Yeah, you’re cutting is very aggressive, white to black, red to blue, jump-cutting, and the sound, how much of that comes before or in post? I have some ideas of sound before but I don’t record any location sound. I allow myself a lot of freedom to experiment with the sound later on. It’s easier to experiment if you don’t have preconceptions of what it is going to be. It’s very difficult to write sound in a script, and visuals too. Words on a page is a very limiting form of communication, which is why we had to invent cinema, which is much more in tune with the way our minds work. They are a useful tool but unless you are a true poet it is very difficult to compete with film language on the page. A lot of stuff is unexplored until the post-production process. Because I don’t have any sound recorded on location, my starting point is silence. Unless I actively do something, scenes are silent which I think is quite rare but it creates a lot of sonic contrast once you do add something. When it comes to the pictures and it being aggressive within the picture cutting, a lot of that is the way I shoot, cause I don’t shoot a lot of footage. I was going to ask how much footage you had? About 3:1-4:1 ratio. So maybe 6 hours of footage, not very much. But I don’t shoot coverage, I don’t shoot scenes so that they can be seamlessly edited. Shots crash into each other constantly, and even within shots, literal crash zooms. I like to normally use a single 26mm lens on a 60mm camera, so the equivalent of a 50mm lens like Ozu or Bresson. But in this, cause it was a nod to the 70s, the zooms had to be there. The temptation to bang into a close-up is hard to resist. So there is that sort of aggression within the shots as well as within the edit. There is a great director who lives in Cornwall, called Lawrence Gordon Clark, who was a TV director, then a documentary director and he went on to make most of the Christmas Ghost Story Films. He came from documentaries and as was the way of the BBC in those days he was assigned a cameraman and an editor when he joined the Ghost Stories for Christmas. I think it was the editor who said to him, maybe the cameraman, “Lawrence, what you have got to understand is that horror is the one genre that as a director you have to draw attention to edits, draw attention to the form, cause a lot of the scare is on the cut”. A shot and a reaction to something we haven’t seen yet, individually the shots aren’t necessarily scary but the context, the positioning of those two events that is provided by the edit. Or a zoom, our eyes naturally don’t zoom, we can tilt, pan, kind of pull focus, but we don’t crash zoom into things. It’s a form, a genre that does draw attention to the mechanics of filmmaking which is something I do all the time in Enys Men. On the flipside the more naturalistic scene, there is only really one, where the boatman turns up, and the volunteer and the boatman have a chat. This was the only scene where I knew when we were shooting it, that “I need to shoot this right”. Cause I want it to feel seamless, I want there to be cuts on action, so he picks up a scone, it cuts from a close-up to a wide, it’s very conventional. It’s how you would be taught to shoot it week one at film school. And it had to be conventional to make the other stuff be deliberately obtuse and aggressive, so it didn’t just look like inept filmmaking. Did you shoot it fairly linearly? Did you plan it all, or just shoot and find it in the edit? The budget level we work at it is all dictated by locations, and some locations are cheap and some are expensive. Usually, the expensive ones are easier to control. We shot a week doing the cottage interiors including the buildings in five days, so we shot a third of the film in the first five days. Which you could do cause shooting interior you have weather coverage, you can shoot day for night/ night for day just by masking the windows. So they are all practical considerations, it is never in story order which I find fine because of the way I edit. It just feels meticulous which is, I guess, why it is hard to believe that you haven’t shot it in some sort of order. I think it is meticulous. Cause we can’t shoot very much, we have to plan exactly what we want to shoot and then we shoot it in a crazy order. It is hardest for Mary [Woodvine] and the cast, cause for her she has to have an emotional… although my strict direction was that she didn’t emote much feeling. What does the script look like then, in terms of how much planning is in the script? I was asked this in New York, cause I’d never been asked it before. Nobody asked what the script for Bait looked like. It looks just like the one for Enys Men, just more dialogue in it. So my action, direction - so you know if it was this scene it would be “Interior, office, day. Two men sat…” Some screenwriters would write, “The sun bleeds in through the window and dappled light across a thesaurus that has been owned by several people and was bought by someone in a second-hand shop…” All this bullshit, which no one needs to know. It’s great if you are writing a short story. There is a good story that John Boorman told about Kurosawa chastising his scriptwriter who would write “The bird flew with a tranquillity that would inspire a restless man”, and Kurosawa said “The bird flew”. That’s it, we never knew what the bird was feeling, we didn’t need to know. None of that flowery language is in there. It is never “The volunteer walks along the moor considering her past”. People have said “It’s a film about grief”, or “it’s a film about trauma”, or “it’s a film about the pandemic”, or “it’s a film about isolation”. So all these different versions of the script say “She wandered across the moor thinking about what had happened since the pandemic”, or “she walked across the moor thinking about what happened since she lost the baby”, or “she walked across the moor thinking about her ex-husband who drowned”. It would prescribe a meaning, and I want the audience to have all of those options and I want that to come after the fact. So Mary has got no clue in the script why she is doing what she is doing. She has to provide that. Because when I am writing a script, every character is me. I can’t write anybody who isn’t a version of me. And I’m what Jung would have defined as a classic introvert. Mary, The Volunteer, is a classic extrovert. So the character, that I have written on the page, in action is an introvert, and then through Mary, in performance, the character becomes an extrovert. But as Jung always said we are all part introvert and extrovert, we’re all on a sliding scale, so you create a character that is somewhere on that scale. I think by giving less information you get a more rich interpretation. Was it hard asking Mary to do the Bresson model [method of acting]? It is difficult because she is highly trained and highly skilled whereas Bresson deliberately picked non-actors who had no – what he would call bad habits – I wouldn’t call bad habits, I would say craft. I’ve just picked my top 10 greatest films for Sight & Sound and the first one was a Bresson film. Which one? L’argent. That would be mine. Either that or Lancelot [du Lac]. That or Mouchette, would be mine. But I love picking a director’s final film, because I don’t think there are many directors who peaked with their final film. And the tragedy of Bresson, if you could say there was a tragedy in the life of a man who lived for ninety-nine years, was that he never got to make his Genesis epic, not the band… that would be a whole other film. I think Mary finds it challenging but she’s my partner as well, we know each other professionally and personally. She knows what I’m like. The Venn diagram of our film tastes would be two separate circles. She grew up with theatre, her dad [John Woodvine] was an established actor in the theatre, so she grew up in the theatre, became an actor in the theatre, and crossed over into doing TV and film. She is very skilled at being a performer in wide shots, whereas my films - when I’m filming humans - mostly close-ups. I’m constantly saying, not to just her, but to everybody including myself, “think of the camera as a magnifying glass”. Everything you are thinking is going to come out of your eyes, you don’t have to articulate it physically. And she challenges it, which is great in a way that people who don’t know me as well probably don’t. She’ll go, “are you sure?” and it makes me have to justify it, which is really helpful. Because I operate the camera I’ll be right next to the actors, which is why I got into shooting these big close-ups, because I have to be right near them. And when you are sharing that space with your partner in real life as well as the film, half the conversation is about filmmaking and the technicalities, and the other having conversations about whose turn it was to buy the cat food. There’s an intimacy that is professional and personal that is different than me working with any other actor. And sometimes I can be quite short with her, I have a sort of short hand, “you know what I want”, but she’s testing me, like all the other actors do. But the other actors, because I don’t have that relationship with them, I’m more willing to take the time to explain what I am doing. Also, not in a manipulative way, but you have to kind of make the actors do what you want them to do, but not go “do this, do that”. Which is really interesting because the myth around Bresson and models, moving them around… It’s how he wrote the book [Notes on the Cinematograph] But if you watch there is some brilliant behind-the-scenes footage on the new Mouchette Blu-ray. He’s such a lovely, avuncular figure. Typical French filmmaker, two-hour break for lunch, everybody sits round and drinks wine. Well he worked with kids a lot in that period Yeah, I think what he wrote in his book was more of an intention than a reality a lot of the time. Yeah, more of a manifesto I don’t think he could make those films if he had stuck [to his rules], if he had been so cold in his approach You wrote a manifesto and the last rule, was break a rule. So I’m guessing you don’t always stick to it Yeah, and you can’t. If you read that book [Notes on the Cinematograph] you think, “that guy sounds like a right cunt”. But he made these beautiful films. Some people do read them as being very cold, I know Mary finds them very difficult to connect with emotionally, but I just think… I can’t articulate what effect Bresson’s films have on me, that’s the beauty of it. It’s like going to a film, and I know you don’t want to discuss too much into the film [Enys Men], because the point is that you watch the film and you feel it “Feel it”, that’s my favourite Bresson quote. “It’s more important to feel the film than understand it”. [paraphrased from “I’d rather people feel a film before understanding it”] Gwenno has a song in the film, and you shot a music video for her, so how did that relationship come about? I’m guessing the answer is Cornwall, but can you talk about that a little People mentioned Gwenno to me before she released Le Kov, her first Cornish language album, so I knew of her, and I knew of The Pipettes, the band that she was in before. The conscious decision to do something in Cornish was really inspiring. We were introduced, and Denzil the producer of Enys Men had met Gwenno, and then we met up and talked about doing a collaboration at some point. Me and her have this thing where we are always talking about collaboration but we went ages without finding anything to collaborate on. I think it is because we are quite similar – we like to do a lot of stuff ourselves. We did talk about me and her making this film for Tresor [her latest album] but ultimately, I didn’t tell her what to do, but I said “you should make this film, you can direct it, you don’t need a director”. In the same way, I decided I didn’t need a musician to do the score on my films, despite being the world’s shittest musician and not being able to read music or play a note. I know what I like the sound of and I don’t know how to do things conventionally, and so what a brilliant creative space to be in. And so she was like that with the film, she said she didn’t know what she was doing, and that is the perfect starting point, cause you’ll create something new and different. So anyway, that is more recent. I made the Den Heb Taves film, but I actually put that together in the lockdown when I was looking for stuff to do but couldn’t go out and shoot stuff, but I had all that footage already. So I put that music video together after the fact, she didn’t ask me to do that. I did it and then said “do you want to put it out”, and she said, “yeah, great”. And so it was something she put out during the lockdown. I wanted to make something bigger than a music video, and the song is bigger than a song in a way. It is a statement about the Cornish language and it’s got an intro to it that is kind of separate to the song. I was sort of thinking about Derek Jarman’s The Queen is Dead music video for The Smiths. I was going to ask why there were no Derek Jarman shorts on your programming for the BFI There is one, A Journey to Avebury, very short film about standing stones. Ah I don’t think I can read clearly It’s a very minor work. So, our direct working relationship came from Tim out of the BFI, when Bait had come out in the cinema and sort of blown up. He said, “we’ll re-release it in the cinema next year, do a few screenings, and when the Blu-ray is released we’ll do an event with a live score”. And I said, “Oh great, who is going to do the live score?”, and he said, “well you did the score, you do it”, I said, “I can’t fucking do it! I can’t recreate those sounds I made”. How did you make the score then? With an analog synthesizer and a tape loop. So I play a few notes, with the Bait score it was chords, in the Enys Men score its notes because I was using a new-old monophonic synthesizer, whereas it was a new-old polyphonic synthesizer for Bait. And a tape loop, so literally two tape machines and a loop going around the room, which I can interfere with and pull and stretch. Yeah, I believe The Texas Chainsaw Massacre used that a lot. Oh right, yeah. So that was the score, but once it was done it was set in stone, there was no way to repeat it. And attempting to try and repeat it in front of four-hundred people… I’m sure I’ve had the anxiety dream where I’ve tried. So Gwenno, we’d used Es Kes in Bait, it’s just playing in the jukebox in the pub. I loved the idea of a Cornish language pop song playing in the pub and no one batting an eyelid. That seemed so alien back then. Now, it happens all the time because those two albums are out. So Gwenno did the score live. She wanted some strings in it, she wanted to do all the electronic stuff, and she DJ’d the pub jukebox live with records on stage at the NFT. And she said, “do you know anybody who plays strings?”. Well, Georgia Ellery, who plays Katie in the film, she’s in Black Country, New Road and she is one-half of Jockstrap. Georgia is much more of a musician than an actor, but she acted in the film cause I think she is a fucking brilliant actor as well. I’m kind of hoping she’ll be in something that I do in the future. So are you still wanting to cast actors going forward? Yeah, well anybody. Actors and anybody who is right, and mixing it up. When I am in London now I am meeting with actors, cause I now have agents coming to me and saying “will you meet these people”. And I look at the list and think bloody hell, these are A-listers. Part of me is thinking that I haven’t got anything that is appropriate and part of me is thinking just go and meet these people and hang out. So Gwenno then did the live score, and that was really popular. That was amazing, it was like watching the film new, like being an audience member. When Bait came out everyone said, “it’s such an amazing experience cause it is so different”. And I couldn’t relate to that because it is so the same for me, it is the same as everything I do - I couldn’t watch it as an audience member, the closest I got to watching it as an audience member was with Gwenno’s score. Suddenly it was a different film, all the shots looked different cause the sound was different. Then she went on tour with it, we were supposed to go and do SXSW, but then the pandemic happened. But then what happened during the lockdown was she created her new album, which came out recently, and she went and toured Australia. She did Bait with the live score alongside her album, so some places she did two dates where she played the film and did the live score. And then with Enys Men we needed an ancient pagan Celtic May song, there are plenty of them around and all of them I suppose will be copyright free, but I didn’t want to use one that existed, I didn’t want it to have the connotations, cause they are so geographically specific. We could have used the Padstow May Song, but you just don’t touch it, that is just for Padstownians, that is just about Padstow. So we commissioned Gwenno to write a brand new ancient May song and she wrote Kan Me, which is brilliant. Sung in a round so the kids could sing it. Then she recorded her own demo version of it which we just loved and we put it over the end credits, and she actually recorded a full version of it. Yeah, it’s on her album as well. She said to us, “can I put it on the album?”, cause we commissioned her to write it. And we said, “Yeah, of course”. I mean, she is the artist and the performer. So we have her version over the end credits and it appears in different guises throughout the film. We have worked out ways of working together. She is just brilliant, a force of nature, I have so much respect for what she does, she just goes, “this is what I want to do” and she does it. And through Heavenly Records who are amazing. It gets to a big audience and it has really revitalised the audience in Cornwall amongst young people which is so important. I was going to say - you have this link to Cornwall, to Cornish, the landscape, miners, and fisherman, do you feel a personal sense of responsibility to that or do you just have an interest in spreading that outward? Cornwall has a real identity crisis when it comes to all forms of media, whether it’s film, television, radio, music… we’ve got a stereotype that is perpetuated through media. So everything I do that is set in Cornwall, I want to redress the balance. It is not necessarily a conscious thing, I just portray the Cornwall that I see as authentic. And I think people are very good at recognising authenticity. The more people write about it and comment about it the more conscious I become about it, which is fine. I can’t control whether people like the work or not but I can control whether it is authentic or not. I wouldn’t want to be accused of being inauthentic. What do you mean by authentic? Representations of Cornwall. So the big thing for Bait was getting the fishing culture right. The detail. The detail of processes. The big scene in Bait where the fisherman makes the kid mend the lobster pot – the way he mends that would last about thirty-seconds back in the sea cause he mends it with a thin bit of twine - but on the whole, getting the knots right, I want to be very specific. The cliché is the more specific you get, the more universal it becomes. Why that phrase makes sense to me is – that you can make the setting authentic, even if it may be foreign to people. People on a very gut level, which is the most important level, recognise authenticity. If they recognise that something like the setting and the context is authentic, they are more susceptible to receive the message of the film, and feel the film. That’s why with Bait for example, when it premiered in New York, I had a woman come up to me who was a New-Yorker but her family were from the Caribbean, she came up to me in tears at the end of the screening and said, “thank you, you have made a film about my Dad”. That was because he was a fisherman in Barbados. So there is a link there because of the fishing, the way we fish and the way they fish is completely different, but there was an authenticity that she connected with. Also when it premiered in Istanbul, I had people come up to me who had been working with people who had been kicked out of a certain neighbourhood because it was being gentrified. They would say, “ This film is about Istanbul”. We’re able to see the universality if you think that the context is authentic. And that’s why when people say, “oh are you always going to make films in Cornwall?”. I think I probably will always make films in Cornwall but they won’t always necessarily be about Cornwall. Is it hard to move away then? If you are representing Cornwall, and it is important to you – why would you want to go further afield? I would only go further afield if I wanted to make a film where the context is deliberately alien. Which I might do, like The Shout by [Jerzy] Skolimowski. I was going to put it on my list for Sight & Sound but bumped it off for some reason. But The Shout is a really good example. There is this foreign eye, telling a very British story. So somebody makes that context seem foreign, there is a layer of abstraction there. I think Symptoms is on my list, so Larraz, a Spanish look at the English countryside and it feels deliberately alien. So I think if I wanted to make the context seem slightly abstract then I could go and make a film in a place that I know nothing about. A lot of my favourite filmmakers have done that. Memoria, is that. The Apichatpong Weerasethakul film. I haven’t seen it. It’s incredible, it is his first film outside of Thailand. It’s like John Boorman making Point Blank so early in his career. I haven’t seen that one. You should watch that one. It’s a sort of crime thriller, basically a chase movie, but it feels like a Bresson film, the performances… I think it has a lot in common with Lost Highway in a lot of ways, in terms of what you think is happening, and what is really happening. I think I’m conscious enough of why I make films in Cornwall to be comfortable not making a film in Cornwall if it was right. But you have your reasons not wanting to – just go to America cause you can Yeah, because I’ve seen enough people go, “oh I’ve got a story, let’s go set it in Cornwall”. And that’s not Cornwall. And it’s never about Cornish people, they say, “I’ve made a film about Cornwall”. Fuck you, you haven’t made a film about Cornwall. You’ve made a film about somebody, normally from London, who has problems in their life that they are unaware of, but they go to Cornwall and through a brief interaction with the ‘simple folk’ who live there, they realise that their life is hollow, they adopt some of the lifestyle of the village idiots, who are all portrayed as that on screen, and then they go back to their other life bettered for this interaction with people who ‘don’t realise how lucky they are’ and ‘don’t have big worries like city people’. That can be anywhere. It happens everywhere but if you haven’t got something that is countering that then it doesn’t take long before that is what somewhere like Cornwall is. Say the movie Pearl Harbor or Titanic, they are not supposed to be taken as real but say in one-hundred or two-hundred-years time when there is no living memory they will be taken as historical texts. There is a responsibility to represent a time and a place I think, and why wouldn’t you want to have an authentic setting that you can create universal stories on top of? Luckily I feel that we have a distinct, ever-changing but ancient culture and way of life in Cornwall that I don’t see in some other places because populations are too transient. Things change very quickly and often leave a feeling of a vacuum. I feel really lucky to have a place that I think is distinct. Yeah, I have moved from Scotland to somewhere that feels less culturally rich Did you become much more Scottish once you left Scotland? Yeah, I was in tears when I went back to Glasgow, and I’m not even from there, just hearing the accent. That’s like me, I spent my youth trying to get out of Cornwall, and then I crossed the border and became the world’s most Cornish person to exert a sort of difference. And then spent the next few years working out how I was going to get back to Cornwall and be sustainable. I have been so lucky that I have been able to do it. Now I love coming to London, but it’s exotic, this is abroad for me. I’m visiting from another country, I feel no less alien here than I did yesterday in New York. That is what I have learned. That’s the complex constitutional position that Cornwall is in, and I envy the position that Scotland is in. I’m sure we’ll form an alliance. Scotland, like Cornwall, have their own parliament. If there was a will… This is getting a bit too exciting now. That’s my dream, I’m sure it’ll be like Bresson’s Genesis biopic, I want to make that film about Cornwall. It’ll be a historical… somewhere half-between Peter Watkins’ Culloden and Braveheart Maybe just drop the Braveheart. I mean Bait moves in that direction. It does, and the beauty of what has happened with Bait, which I can’t take responsibility for and is actually really depressing is that it becomes more and more prescient and relevant every day. The problem with Cornwall is we have this word ‘dreckly’. It has no English translation, the closest translation is the Spanish ‘mañana’. If you say, “I’ll see you dreckly”, then it means “I’ll see you at some point in the future”. So there is a saying in Cornwall which is “Independence… dreckly”. It’ll come. Thing is with Cornwall, there has never been any history of organisation, no trades union movement or anything. The Cornish have always gone from passive acceptance to riot, there has never been anything in-between. So I wait for the moment where enough Cornish people stand up and say, “we have had enough of Westminster now”, and draw the bridge up. We should probably talk about film a bit more. So I wanted to talk a bit about your short films, Enys Men has this relation to the Christmas Ghost Stories and so too does Hard, Cracked the Wind. Do you want to talk about that a bit? Yeah, it is kind of, of a piece with Enys Men thematically. That’s a real outlier of a short film for me because I didn’t write it. That was written by a writer called Adrian Bailey - who I was collaborating with on Enys Men originally, before it was even called Enys Men. We had an idea that we would come up with a story together, he would write it, I would direct it. I was looking for that kind of collaboration. We shot Hard, Cracked the Wind because we had a bit of film stock left over after Bait. So he wrote Hard, Cracked the Wind. I don’t want to speak for him, but my brief was sort of a Ghost Story for Christmas, a sort of M.R. James story, with the haunted writing case. And that was great, but to be totally honest with you I was a little bit lost because I worked with a cinematographer and a writer, both of whom were great. But I was a bit at a loose end as a director cause I normally write and re-write whilst I’m shooting, and I’m normally operating the camera, so I’m normally running on nervous energy and no sleep every second of the shoot. On that film, I just wandered round most of the time just drinking coffee and chatting to people thinking, “is this what a normal director does?”. We shot for five days and on the fifth day I had food poisoning and was wrapped up in the corner of the room just shivering and being sick, basically not saying anything, and the film continued without any input from me. It was like “Oh wow, I’m so unimportant in this thing”. Anyway, it was good experience, the film did well, and we rode the wave off the back of Bait and it opened up some short film festivals that I hadn’t had work at before, which was great. Then we set to work on Enys Men, me and Adrian bashed out a story together, he wrote a treatment for it. He took it in one way and I wanted to take it in another, so we agreed that I would write it, and he kind of handed it back to me, and he’s got a co-story by credit on the film but then I wrote the script. In a lot of ways Hard, Cracked the Wind was a really good process for me – working with a cinematographer which I hadn’t done for a long time, which was really illuminating. It made me realise what I wanted to do, which films I could shoot myself and which ones I couldn’t shoot myself. And working with a writer educated me as to how that works, how you can work with a writer and not necessarily hand over everything to them, it can be a collaboration despite the writer having a sole credit. Also if I have a story that I can be very specific about the brief with, which I felt I did have with Enys Men, then it wasn’t going to work with a writer. I thought I might as well write that myself. I’m collaborating with a writer on an adaptation that is going to be a little way off yet, but for Enys Men it was suddenly, by reading the treatment that someone else wrote I realised what film I wanted to make and it wasn’t that film. It was a fantastic treatment, and it would have made a great film, but not a film I could have made. Oh, that reminds me, back to Bresson, did you ever consider having a voiceover for Enys Men? I did think about voiceover, yeah. What voiceover quite often is, is a bit of a safety net. Some people work with voiceover brilliantly in a really literal beautiful way, like Terrence Malick. I rewatched The Thin Red Line the other day which is one of my favourite films. That should have been on my top 10 list! That works beautifully, it is an added layer of poetry to a film that is already like a poem. Then there is Withnail and I, masterful voiceover used so sparingly, there is hardly any in it, but it is so beautifully done. Cause it is Marwood, it’s Paul McGann, but the way he delivers it, it’s almost like he is whispering it when Withnail’s not listening, so it has got a performative complexity to it as well. Voiceover - if you are using it like a safety net is like an exposition tool, so when things get too confusing you can drop a bit of voiceover in. I did it with a film I made years ago, I wouldn’t have used it if we had money to do reshoots, but I didn’t have money for it. So what those reshoots were conveying in terms of information I just put it into a voiceover, and then put voiceover over the whole thing, so it became a voiceover movie, which I really like but I was forced into it. With Enys Men, for two reasons I didn’t go into voiceover – one, I thought there is no use trying to explain anything in this film, if I tried to explain stuff, it would make it look like a film where it made no sense and then I was trying to explain it to an audience. Or it could have been a voiceover that added to the ambiguity, but then I realised that I have three outlets for exposition within the film already: the VHF marine radio with which she [the volunteer] communicates with the land, the AM radio which gives the history of the stone, and her journal. I already had these three channels. And the journal stuff is all a pickup. That’s not Mary’s hand, I wanted very specific handwriting, that’s my First AD, Callum, who writes in the book. Very beautiful hands. So I didn’t have to commit to what was being written until later on. It’s all in the script what has been written, except I came up with the idea later on for the “No change”. When it gets to May 1st and it says, “No change” on the day, and she stops writing about the flowers. This kind of [The] Shining, head on, looking at some text. From principal photography we didn’t record anything she was writing in the book, we just filmed her from behind writing, but I knew in the edit, if I wanted to muddy the water, or clear the water, she could write. Maybe about her relationship with the boatman… Or at any point I could have a stray radio broadcast bring a clanger of exposition without it feel like you are being explained to. So I ruled out voiceover early on because I knew I had those other tools, which are less blatant, less obvious than voiceover. There’s a writer called [Blake] Snyder who wrote a screenwriting book called Save the Cat! There is an expression he has called ‘Pope in the Pool’, which is a way of doing exposition. He wrote a screenplay, where there is a scene in the Vatican and the Pope’s envoy has to come in, the Pope is sat behind a desk, and just communicates a shed load of exposition for the film to move on, and he couldn’t work out any way of getting around it. So rather than saying it in the Pope’s office, he put the Pope in a swimming pool doing lengths. The envoy comes in doing exposition and the audience are going, “I suppose the Pope would have a swimming pool in the Vatican”, and “I suppose he would do breaststroke”. And you’re thinking that whilst hearing all this exposition, without knowing that you are being hit over the head with it. So I always knew I had this ‘Pope in the Pool’ device with the radio. Not only that but I knew that I had the convention that sometimes it could be inaudible cause it was coming across the sea. If I felt like it was too much information coming out I could put a bit more crackle on it so you only hear every other word. You have to lean forward and engage with it, you have to work for it so it doesn’t feel like you are just being fed it. Long answer to the question, I ruled out voiceover very early. For the films that you have programmed at the BFI in January (The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men) you have picked Jeanne Dielmann… which is a film that is relatively inaccessible in the UK right now, and it is obviously this centrepiece of cinema, it is towards the top of the Sight and Sound list, what does it mean to you to have films like that as inaccessible? And also your own films, like David Bowie is Dead, which means a lot to me, as inaccessible? [Context: this was pre-2022 S&S list and Jeanne Dielmann… is available to stream now on the BFI Player] I’m conflicted cause I quite like the fact that some films are difficult to see. It is different if they are impossible to see. But now in the days of streamers, if they are possible to see they are very easy to see, or they are impossible to see. Whereas in the past it was more interesting when you had to go on a bit of a hunt to find a film. I remember trying to get hold of a copy of Long Weekend, which is on my list, the Colin Eggleston, 1978, Australian film. You literally had to try and find a VHS tape from Australia. Pre-eBay. God knows where I was even looking for it. It made things like libraries and inter-library loans a thing, so by the time you got it, you had worked for it, so you were invested in it. It’s a shame that that has been lost. I saw Jeanne Dielmann… a long time ago, once. The reason I put it on the list is because other people kept mentioning it. I thought if other people are mentioning it, consistently, it must be an influence, even though I have only seen it once. It just shows the power of the film. I said to Julie at the BFI I want to programme it and then I asked if they could get a copy of it cause I haven’t seen it in twenty years. This is the luxury of the position I am now in, and a Criterion copy arrived from the States. Yeah, that’s how you have to do it, you have to pay £30-odd to get it and get a region-free DVD player. The luxury is I can just ask the BFI, I’m making the most of it whilst it lasts. But then it is nice to put it on [Screen it publicly at the BFI]. Conversely, I said to Julie – I picked Lost Highway, which they have on soon –“shall I take it off the list”, and she said, “No, keep it on, cause people will watch it with a different context”. It is sad that it isn’t available, but I feel a real responsibility and a real pride, that I can choose to put that on and introduce it to people who haven’t seen it before. It’s a real outlier in terms of endurance to watch it. It was difficult to watch it at home, even though I loved the film. I wanted to watch it, and I needed to watch it for work purposes, but I still had to switch off all devices. Still two hours left… Yeah It’s a marathon Yeah, I think it is really helpful. Afterwards, you put on a two-and-a-half-hour film and it feels like you are watching a short. It broadens your ability to appreciate how gruelling cinema can be, and gruelling in a good way, cause it stays with you. With regards to my own work, it is all down to licensing, people license the work. I’m really pleased that the BFI have got a lot of my back catalogue. These things run in cycles. If you look on amazon or the BFI player, if my film comes up it means that it is coming back. That’s good to know. Enys Men is screening across the UK from Friday 13th January. Look out for a Q&A screening with director Mark Jenkin near you. Enys Men | Official Website | 13 January 2023 The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men season is running throughout January at the BFI Southbank. The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men | BFI Southbank See a selection of Mark Jenkin’s short films at the BFI Southbank as part of London Short Film Festival Buy cinema tickets for LSFF: Mark Jenkin: An Fylmow Berr | BFI Southbank

Interview by Chris Olson Hi Ryan, thanks for speaking with us. Where do we find you right now and what have you been up to? My pleasure. Thanks for having me! Currently, I’m based in New York, a little north of Manhattan. In regards to your second question, 2022 has been a pretty busy year. My new short film was released and it has screened at various festivals throughout the country. That said, I’ve been spending a lot of time promoting the film, attending festivals, taking part in Q&As, interviews and just spreading the word grassroots style. Your latest short film is The Call. How do you describe the film to a new audience? The Call has a theme that many people can relate to regardless of the era in which it takes place. Despite the film's one setting and the protagonist's seemingly trivial predicament, its story still takes a deep dive into the darkest corners of the human condition. I saw The Call as an opportunity to create a metaphor of sorts for the anxious and paranoid times we live in. Why did you want to tell this story? The Call is a time capsule in a way but it’s also timeless at its core. Many people may find its story relatable despite it taking place in 1965. Man (the character wasn’t named purposely) has allowed his job to take over his life, actually more than that. He believes his job is his life. It has become his identity. Man cannot fathom a world without it as made clear in the film. Through my own observations, I’ve seen the effect this outlook has on the lives of various people. Would it get the best of them as it did Man? Probably not. But I have noticed many people identify themselves solely by their occupation. This is sad to me because there’s so much more to us than just what we do from 9-5. I hope that can be a takeaway for those who watch my film. The film is set in the 60s and has a noir visual style, such as the black-and-white, aspect ratio, and unsettling score. What was the research like for achieving this style? And how has the result been received by audiences? I’ve always believed authenticity is vital in any film. The Call, taking place in 1965, required research on different facets of life during that time. For instance, the furniture and the character’s attire were picked carefully not only because that era had a distinct look but it also had to suit the character and the film. The 4:3 aspect ratio was chosen due to its square-shaped presentation. I believe this would speak to the character’s state of mind and his increasing paranoia, especially in the last couple of scenes. The score has impressed people greatly. Elizabeth P.W. did a fine job and her work is praised often. The references I gave her consisted mainly of scores from “The Twilight Zone” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” People have been very impressed by the level of detail in the production design ranging from the copy of “Life” magazine on the table to the vintage cabinet TV seen at the beginning of the film. And all that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting the style just right! It looks and sounds amazing! Tom Martin plays the lead role and is the only on-screen presence. What was it like directing him? Collaborating with Tom was a great experience. His dedication to his performance and the character blows my mind to this day. Thorough research was done on aspects of his character ranging from appearance, mannerisms and motivations to analyzing the backstory and so on. Like you said, Tom’s character is the only on-screen presence throughout the film which is an uncommon scenario in movies. During the production itself, the script supervisor read the other character’s lines out loud but not within Tom’s line of sight - this was done intentionally. I like to tell actors they should become the character; thus, if the character is talking into a phone with no one in sight, the same should go for Tom. In the film, the character is fighting to keep intact what is most dear to him - his career. I asked Tom to think of what he holds dearest to him, think of what he would do to save it, and then channel that energy into his performance. And I feel he did that very well. Yes, he's great, it's a really excellent performance! What are your plans for the film? And how can people see it? I’d like for The Call to have legs. The film has been on the festival run throughout this year and that’s also the plan for 2023. A lot of hard work went into this film and I want to get it in front of as many people as possible via the big screen. But I understand attending a film festival may not be possible for some people. That’s why I hope to make the film available online post 2023. Why do you make movies? Wow, what a question. I make movies because it’s an amazing art form in which literature, music, the performing arts, and more come together to create a whole new entity called a film. When I was a child I would watch movies just like every other kid. But as time went on I found myself analyzing the component parts of films I’d be watching. If I was discontent with a certain line of dialogue, angle or sequence, I would think of ways how it could be better. Eventually, writing my own material came into play followed by bringing those words to life through filmmaking. I’ve had a passion for cinema, as well as making it, for a long time now and I don’t see that ever changing. What’s next for you? While managing the rest of The Call festival run, I’m writing another short which I plan to direct as well. There’s also another project in development called The Final Broadcast that I wrote with Ben Woodiwiss, co-writer of The Call. Connecting with like-minded individuals to talk shop and more is also a goal of mine. I feel there is a solidarity of sorts amongst most filmmakers. After all, the mind of an artist is a unique animal not all can understand. Read my film review of The Call. #ChrisOlson

★★★★ Directed by: Ryan Jafri Written by: Ryan Jafri, Ben Woodiwiss Starring: Tom Martin, Alex Hebert Short Film Review by: Chris Olson The Call Short Film Review Tom Martin plays a man being subjected to a thorough grilling over the phone by a menacing voice (Alex Herbert) that represents “the firm”. Pleasing his boss is not going to be easy, though, as time is ticking by and it seems as if someone may be sabotaging his efforts. Told with a strong noir style, short film The Call utilises some classic cinematic tropes to immerse the viewer into this dark mystery. The boxy aspect ratio dates the film immediately, allowing the audience to recognise the story is set in the past (1965 to be specific). Presented in black and white, the tone of the film is aligned perfectly with the tone of the plot - creating a wonderfully brooding and suspicious atmosphere to be engulfed by - our desire to see our protagonist succeed and to find out who is undermining him is heightened by this stylistic choice. Supported, furthermore, by a creepy and unsettling score that will unnerve even the hardiest of viewers. “A man on his phone” can often be a risky structure for a film, even one with just a 13-minute running time. There is a serious prospect that audiences will get bored with just one actor and an unseen voice. With The Call, writers Ryan Jafri (who also directs) and Ben Woodiwiss know how to keep us glued to the unfurling conflict between the two characters, using enough menace and mystery in the dialogue to keep things interesting and ensuring the captivating filmmaking enhances the experience. This is then assisted by a great onscreen performance by Martin, who is able to display the anxiety and peril of his character brilliantly through nervous speaking and uncomfortable body language. The main shortfalling of The Call seems to be an underdeveloped storyline. If this is a proof of concept for a bigger film then it’s fine but as a short film, the surprise ending doesn’t feel enough after being invested in the mystery and great filmmaking previously. Audiences may feel a little short-changed by such a swift conclusion to the piece. That being said, the first rule of showbiz is always to leave them wanting more and that is definitely the case with The Call. The menacing voice on the phone may also seem a little ott. The film manages to create a really classy vibe and this villainous approach threatens to derail it into cartoonishness. Fans of the noir genre and classic filmmaking will be in their element with The Call. It has a ton of strong points and manages to make exceptional use of some great stylistic choices and simple story elements. A great solo performance (on-screen) makes for a worthwhile adventure into a fiery business call. #ChrisOlson

★★ Directed by: #OrionMonroe Starring: #JacobKaufman, #JulieCarney, #JosephMoreland, #PaigeWallace, #TimothyNoahCurtis Short Film Review by: Alexandra James Butterfly tells the story of a young man struggling to come to terms with his personal challenges being bipolar disorder and managing this with the social structures within this world. Davis is a young, good-looking boy but he knows it and often uses his charm and manipulative ways to get what he wants in life, whether this be from his parents or within his friendship group. His egotistical persona soon becomes shattered when his girlfriend turns his friends against him by accusing him of a despicable act. Davis’s world crashes before him after this, and he soon learns that you cannot charm everyone into believing your every word and popularity will always be temporary. Butterfly opens to a family home with Ellen, Davis’s mother, working at the table. She becomes distracted by Davis as he bothers her and proceeds to ruin all of her hard work, just because he was unable to wear his favourite shirt. His attitude and behaviour throughout appeared extremely challenging, he lacked empathy, and it was obvious he has been spoilt throughout his life. His father, Max, is very much in denial regarding his diagnosis of bipolar. However, mum Ellen does not want this to be dismissed so easily. Davis craves order and routine within his life. To ignore his diagnosis only sets Davis up for future problems in life whether this be work, family life or friends. Later, the audience are introduced to Davis’s friends, who certainly fit that frat boy image and are extremely clique. It was the acting which brought the tone of this short down. A lot of the characters were very stereotypical and there were elements which seemed stiff making some scenes clunky and very unnatural to the actors. It was hard to see the meaning behind this story and the direction that it was trying to head in, as there were a few scenarios that popped up but were not explored deeper, for example Davis being bipolar. This was an issue that was touched upon but could have been developed further. Butterfly does have some interesting themes such as mental health and the social constructs within friendship groups. However, it may have benefitted to stick with one theme to delve further into rather than have this mixture and not explore them so deeply.

★★★ Directed by: #MorganOCallaghan Starring: #JoeSambrook, #AdamBrown, #ZanderODonovan Short Film Review by: Alexandra James Pilferage follows a thief on a mission…however, we are not entirely sure what the mission is, and neither does he. This film is an entertaining piece directed by Morgan O’Callaghan for a University project. Of course, when it comes to work created by students there are some teething issues which can be ironed out, but this comes with experience and time. Pilferage was witty and the narrative was an interesting concept, it would be great to see this develop into a feature length film as the audience are left on an extremely climactic ending but that sometimes is the best place to be because we are hungry for more! There were some definite cheesy lines, but I can admit they did make me chuckle, this is a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There were echoes of the film Snatch, a gritty yet funny Guy Ritchie classic which combines the hard attitude of London and quick cockney wit. The background music within Pilferage reflected Ritchie’s style it was upbeat and edgy and lifted the scene, it can be considered mismatched, but it provided a different tone to the piece and set this short film up as comedic and light-hearted. Moreover, the running commentary from our protagonist as he takes us back in time is very Ritche-esque style as our main character takes us on a journey as to how he ended up in this crazy scenario. Of course, the humour was a tad corny but that did not hinder the narrative in the slightest. Although immature, I still found it funny and believed that it helped the story and made for a very entertaining short. There are some drawbacks to the piece but for a university project this can be overlooked. However, it is always good to recognise them so that you can improve and develop on this further. The sound had some issues which made it sometimes difficult to hear the dialogue, but this can easily be rectified. The storyline itself could have had a little more detail, it seemed rushed in places. The element of ambiguity is a key component, however, for a short film where the ending is not revealed and left at a climax, it is important to make sure the audience remain engaged and reveal a few features so that we can interpret the finale ourselves. Pilferage is one that tantalises and intrigues the audience, it would be great to see the students who created this short develop this story further and let their imagination explore the variety of possibilities for the ending.

★★★★ Directed by: #NanciCruz Starring: #GabrielleRosson, #LizBishop, #JacleneLondon Short Film Review by: Alexandra James Nanci Cruz director of To Err, explores the fascinating and endless fields of space and time and humans need to search, discover, and ponder over the possibilities that it entails. This short is a moving story about Noelle, an engineer who forms an unlikely friendship with a satellite system on a mission to discover the furthest reaches of space in search for black holes for observation. Kiara is an AI satellite so the bond between the two seems extremely out of the ordinary. However, in a world now where we are constantly surrounded by technology and can speak with devices for numerous answers, it cannot be considered completely far from the realities of today. The film focuses on what it means to be human and that question ‘why?’ Why do we feel this need to constantly be searching for an answer, our curiosities have often led us to discover wonderous things but have also led to some devastating consequences. To Err was driven primarily through the voices of Noelle and the satellite Kiara. The film was lacking in terms of its visual aspect; however, this isn’t a negative trait as the sound of both Noelle and Kiara’s voice were hypnotic, especially when coupled with the background music. Both voices combined were so clear and poignant, it completely carried you away on a journey to outer space and this was key because rather than being distracted by constant visuals on screen, you are forced to focus and listen to the questions the two characters discuss and analyse. Nevertheless, the small snippets of our protagonist Noelle that we did see was filled with emotion and did help to break up the narrative. Perhaps more shots of our central character would have benefited this piece so that we can remain fully engaged throughout. Nanci Cruz uses archive footage of the NASA mission launches which really echoes this sense of achievement. Humans have been able to overcome so many challenges and obstacles our curiosity know no bounds and because of this, we have been able to explore and uncover the history of our planet and intricate details of our solar system. However, as To Err portrays, the answers we discover is never enough, our constant need to question why, will never be fulfilled because there is always more to be questioned in life and far more to explore which is beyond our capabilities. Yet, this will never deter humans from searching for these answers it is a curse but also a positive attribute all wrapped in one. To Err is a captivating short film seeking to ask that question ‘why?’ and leaves the story open for the audience to answer this for themselves. Nanci Cruz has created a truly beautiful story which highlights some of humanities greatest achievements but also reflects this idea that humans can still make mistakes and combines both science and sentiment together for one great short narrative.

★★★★★ Directed by: #SamMizrahiPowell Starring: #JamieRoy, #CaitlinThorburn, #GarrettMBrown, #IvyVotolato, #JoeyMartin, #JoshuaMoomey Short Film Review by: Alexandra James The Pursuit of a Jigsaw is unlike your typical jump scare, gore fest that is often linked to the horror genre. Instead, director Sam Mizrahi-Powell focuses on everyday life and the horrors that lie within conforming to social protocols and the unwritten expectations of how we should conduct our lives, whether this be to get a job, buy a house, get married and have children. Mizrahi-Powell highlights the downfalls of living this predicted lifestyle and suggests that people can lose their individuality and their sense of self, practically morphing into the person you’re in a relationship with. You both are no longer individuals, you see the same people, have the same hobbies, eat the same food the list goes on. The little escapism you do have soon is taken away from you as your partner begins to encroach on this freedom. This of course is an exaggerated version of marriage, and certainly one which projects the dangers of being a part of a toxic relationship. This is a great fear carried by many and this film exposes these doubts in a relatable and artistic way. Throughout the film, there are glimpses of people whose faces are deformed as they are beginning to mutate into their partner and colleagues at work. Signifying that we all become a part of someone else and lose ourselves in the process. Protagonist Ben sees these people every day and knows that it won’t be long until he begins to turn into one of these creatures as he is soon to wed fiancé Donna in less than a month. This figure was frightening and creepy, but also became a part of the everyday characters and blends in with the background, highlighting the fact that society no longer contains individuality. Not only in home life but also work life, everyone needs to be part of a team, ideas are to be decided in a group and Ben can no longer be his own man. The only space where Ben felt free and in his element was at the beach swimming. Here he could be himself and alone, away from the crowds of people, this was a perfect location to truly represent freedom. The black and white scenes fit this piece extremely well, especially because the period is set in 1950’s America. This aids the narrative further particularly because of this suburban lifestyle and everyone wanting that white picket fence dream. The move from black and white to colour when Ben makes it to the beach was a clever choice as it emphasises this picturesque escapism for Ben. The stylistic editing for this short pushed this film to another level and helped to strengthen the theme of identity. Pursuit of a Jigsaw highlights the realities of entrapment within a relationship. Sam Mizrahi-Powell turns the negative energy within a relationship into a physical monster. A great short film that makes the audience think about the dynamics within family life, partnership, or work colleagues and focuses on how we adapt ourselves in each situation to the point where a little bit of ourselves slowly breaks away each time until you are no longer yourself. A frightening yet thought provoking premise.

★★★ Directed by: #PeterStead Starring: #PeterStead and #HopeBloxham Short Film Review by: Alexandra James Believe is a short horror film that is portrayed in a similar style to Paranormal Activity or the Blair Witch Project. The film is made up of a collection of tapes which have been discovered and shows our protagonist Sean’s last moments he was seen alive. The film focuses on Sean’s attempt to prove that his home is not haunted, however, as an avid horror fan we all know that this is never going to be the case. Sean is completely against this idea of the supernatural, ghosts and demons. His total disregard for this kind of paranormal realm and his sceptic persona makes for an exciting watch, as his denial only strengthens this presence that resides in his home. A creepy film that plays on the mind, with such a small budget Peter Stead uses this to his advantage by creating a very authentic narrative. Believe uses POV footage which does have its pros and cons. For horror, it is a great way to convey a realistic feel. Along with this form of ‘home’ footage, there is this unpredictability to it because you are not prepared for what you will see next. The audience are typically warned about upcoming jump scares through the background music which tends to build up the intensity of the film. However, the audience remain in the dark and certain scenes can come as a shock and strike the most fear because we have not had that ease into a scene. This makes POV perfect for horror cinema as the genre itself is there to frighten and leave you in a state of apprehension. However, the drawbacks with this are visual issues, it can be difficult to make out what is happening on screen with the shakiness of the camera or awkward camera angles which block out certain moments within a scene. It would have been great to see more of a build-up of these eerie events that take place in Sean’s flat. It’s also worth noting that this short does have the potential to be feature length. The moving of objects, glimpses of dark figures lurking in hallways and the development of Sean’s character as he is slowly driven into madness, would have really made for an engaging and classic horror film. Peter Stead, director, and starring in Believe does include many of the pieces needed to construct a successfully chilling film. The narrative is clear and concise, the acting is realistic and the use of a POV camera is perfect for this kind of genre. It is because of all these elements that it would have been great to see this story expanded into a full feature film. This short has a lot of potential for the audience to see the gradual movement of the story and capture Sean’s fear at each stage and would have created a great impact. Believe shakes up our inner most fears and teases our curiosities into the dark and strange making for a compelling watch.

★★★★ Directed by: Gurjant Singh Written by: Omar Parvaz Starring: Viraj Juneja, Parvinder Shergill Short Film Review by: Chris Olson Fancy a Redo? Film Review The enduring battle and crippling emotional gauntlet that is the first date gets a refreshingly modern comic twist in the short film Fancy a Redo? Written by Omar Parvaz and directed by Gurjant Singh, the movie takes a playful look at two characters comparing their worst dates after just being on a bad one together. Viraj Juneja and Parvinder Shergill play the leading pair, who have clearly just finished an underwhelming first date - apparently, among other failings, there were green poppadoms! In a burst of frankness, the two characters sit in the car and swap stories about their worst dates, with hilarious side characters and imaginative embellishments. A particular highlight sees Juneja's character attempting to play himself as an action hero after being robbed in a previous romantic rendezvous, one of which he provides several varying accounts of. As the pair connect over their previous horrible experiences (one guy live streams a whole date) it becomes clear that there is chemistry between these two people but will it be enough to shake years of disappointing dalliances? Fancy a Redo? is full of charm, likeable characters, and, most essentially, great comedy. The jokes get executed brilliantly and the use of creative liberty allows the short film to take on an unpredictability that is definitely engaging and enjoyable. The film has a high production value, slick editing, and knows how to incorporate modern flair to satisfy today's audience. There are also moments of pathos to balance the comedy, in particular the ending which was highly effective. Juneja steals the film, with a performance that is commanding and natural. His comedic timing is on point throughout. Shergill is a good on-screen partner, however, seems less confident with the dialogue and struggles to seem as natural. The other performers all do well to support the story, in particular a thug who has several other flashbacks and Zumba to get to! As with all good romantic comedies, the filmmakers here know how to leave us wanting more. It's a great snapshot into the potential blossoming of a new relationship, where the characters feel well-rounded and their past experiences authentic. The film doesn’t really tread too much new territory, even if the delivery feels fresh, and we aren’t getting down into much depth in terms of thematic exploration of the characters and their backstories. Instead, the film is a lighter affair and audiences are likely to enjoy this aspect. #ChrisOlson