ShortStick

Dad's Not Home, dir. Jan Saczek A birthday notification buzzes on Kuba's phone, but it goes unmentioned. He and his younger brother Bartek stir awake in their bunk bed and begin the familiar routine of the day. This is not a typical household, though. Their father, David, is suffering from some form of dementia, and the boys share the burden of caring for him while also preparing themselves for school. As they cook, dress him, and keep the house in order, the implication is c

This past weekend Josh attended Ottawa International Animation Festival and took in some of the best the animation world has to offer. Here are three shorts that stuck out as some of the best of the bunch! States of Matter , dir. Marvin Hauck An experimental journey unfolds in Marvin Hauck’s enigmatic short film States of Matter,  a strata-cut animation, born from the alchemy of wax and paper. The film echoes the mysterious cycle of metamorphosis: molten wax, once fluid and f

Confession , dir. Rebeka Bizubová Documentaries have the formal capacity of emanating truth and reality. Hence, the possibilities are infinite. An example of the limitless power of the medium is Spoved' (Confession) by Rebeka Bizubová. The Slovak director portrays her personal story of a sexual assault that happened a few years ago and still echoes loudly in her mind. The director analyzes her personal pain in two different scenarios: confessing to her best friend and confess

In ‘ A Sparrow's Song ’ we follow an elderly widow who finds herself in the harrowing throes of the struggles of World War II. She is serving as an air raid warden in a busy shelter, with daily occurrences of air raid alarms slowly wearing down her hope of returning to a normal life. Already struggling to overcome the grief of losing her partner, she is forced to witness the suffering of the people and children around her as they all scurry to take shelter together. One morni

flower_gan , dir. Mati Granica “The work that you are seeing is perfectly legal—but should it be?” The unconventionally inventive short film  flower_gan stands at the crossroads of creativity and technology, confronting head-on the future of filmmaking with both curiosity and critique. It challenges the promises of AI-driven creation where speed and scale threaten to dissolve the human touch and asks what is lost when art becomes data. In a landscape rushing toward automatio

The 12 Inch Pianist , dir. Lucas Ansel Lucas Ansel's short film is centered around a classic joke involving a bar, a genie with a hearing problem, and a miniature pianist. Ansel, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, created this as his senior film, drawing inspiration from Simon Rich's short story "Guy Walks Into a Bar," published in The New Yorker in 2013. Rich took the well-worn and somewhat crude gag and extended it into the world just beyond the titular punchli