21st Hollyshorts Film Festival Review Roundup: Part 4

Sadly, the 21st edition of Hollyshorts has come to an end. However, there is still time to join in on the fun virtually on bitpix until August 24th! Congrats to all the award winners at the ceremony including shorts we have covered throughout the year like A Friend of Dorothy, The Second Time Around, The Singers, Voices from the Abyss, Susana, Money Talk$, Ragamuffin and RISE. Here are three final reviews of shorts we loved from this years fest:

A Bear Remembers, dirs. Zhang & Knight

“I’m sorry I’ve forgotten so much, but it was nice to try”

Set in a mythic reimaging of modern Britain, A Bear Remembers is a richly evocative world where folklore reigns and spirits roam the countryside, an atmosphere in which there is a thin line between the spiritual world and the real world. In Greyhill, a small town on the outskirts of a ruined village, a mysterious and repetitive metallic clanging sound is plaguing the local community day and night, and the residents of the town are looking for answers.

A Bear Remembers mines the rich pastoral vibes of eerie rural stories like The Third Day (without ever going full Wicker Man folk horror), moving through the misty mountainside and creating an ominously spooky tension before a character even speaks. The feeling of being lost in a distant, natural past is ripped away with the entrance of a drone camera, flown by young Peter (Lewis Cornay) as he tries to find an answer to the mystery plaguing the town. He shows his footage to Ebba (Anna Calder-Marshall), the local weird old lady, who cryptically says that the sound reminds her of the beat of a song that she knew from a long time ago. The two set off together to find an answer to their questions, searching for a place and time that might no longer exist.

Though A Bear Remembers is more concerned with questions than with their answers, to say more about what the two find would spoil the constantly surprising story. A Bear Remembers is a film that is in conversation with the past, about the importance of cultural heritage, and about trying to remember. To these characters, memory is identity, and it informs who they are. In a tricky tonal balance that splits the difference between Memoria and Paddington, A Bear Remembers bridges the gap between heritage and modernity, showing the both the possibilities gained in the future as well as the history lost to the past.

Zhang & Knight are a directing duo based in London who create dreamlike environments in their rich and vivid films. Zhang nearly began a career as a painter, which is evident in the duo’s unique imagery of light and shade, their texturally rich compositions simultaneously modestly intimate and jaw-droppingly beautiful. The duo have created here a vivid world which explores the themes of cultural identity through traditional folklore. The directors were inspired by their own families’ experiences living in cultures that were removed from their own. Knight’s Turkish mother was adopted and cut off from her culture; Zhang is half Chinese and grew up speaking English and living in the UK. A Bear Remembers is inspired by this loss of heritage, by the space between the culture in which one is born and the one in which they live.

The impeccable technical aspects of A Bear Remembers are just as important in bringing this metaphysical world to the screen. The earth-toned images of cinematographer Christopher Ripley’s always-roving camera create a metaphysical surreality where anything can happen and characters are trapped in the boxy Academy frame even as they seek to expand their world. The emotionally haunting music by Jonathon Ng moves from eerie to ethereal and back, supporting the magical realism of the story with every beat.

A Bear Remembers is at its heart a film about culture heritage but also has a sneakily eco-conscious message in the man vs. nature vein of the films of Studio Ghibli. Zhang & Knight contrast the naturalness of the spiritual world with the “progress” of the town, with its silently spinning wind farms in the distance of every shot. “I wonder where all the trees went…,” is a gloomily asked question throughout. In the end, A Bear Remembers shows us the value and importance of connection to ourselves and nature despite how far society progresses technologically.

Review by: Joshua Hunt

Two Ships, dir. McKinley Benson

Two Ships is a story written by Mackenzie and McKinley Benson, depicting the daily routines of a couple living together. The film opens up on a sleepy town in the middle of the night with only a handful of windows showing light inside. We slowly pan into one of the dark ones, where our main characters are sleeping in their shared bed. Suddenly a flash appears from the wristwatch of one of them, subtly indicating that the time has come to start the “morning” routine. With a gentle loving stroke on the cheek of their partner, they sneak out into the kitchen and close the door behind them.

The pair has completely opposite schedules, so despite sharing a home their physical interactions are limited. Dishes in the sink or cute little notes of various tasks become a substitute connection, spilling over from one side of the schedule to the other. Chores that oftentimes puts a strain on relationships gets morphed into a relay race of loving acts of service for one another.

To illustrate this the writers here let the two normally separate timeframes overlap in the same scenes, using sunlight or darkness as a mechanic for a makeshift split screen. A dish left behind by one gets instantly picked up by the other, cleverly leveraging the static nature of these objects as a way to show the steady passing of time. Even sharing a meal at their dining room table, likely hours apart yet together in spirit.

While clearly saddened by their lack of true intimacy, it is really beautiful to see how a connection can be built on these fleeting moments of interaction. We also see the pair clearly longing for the weekend when they can wake up together and enjoy their shared life in the same place, at the same time. The longing itself makes those moments feel even more special, akin to a long distance relationship separated by hours not kilometers.

The core of this film really stuck with me. Having spent time away from loved ones I have often found it to strengthen my relationships rather than feeling like you are losing touch. The yearning to be together again and sharing those moments only further emphasises the love we have for one another. And even though it is sad in many ways that this is oftentimes the reality for couples in modern society, I do think there is beauty to be found in the perseverance of sharing those fleeting moments.

Review by: Robin Hellgren

Big Man, dir. Aneil Karia

Stormzy is one of the most well-known rappers in the recent British hip-hop scene. His albums Gang Signs & Prayer (2017), Heavy Is the Head (2019), and This Is What I Mean (2022) are successful and critically acclaimed works. Hence, the musician follows a recent trend in the UK rap artistry, where popular rappers are turning into actors, such as Dave in the Netflix show Top Boy, and Aitch in the upcoming reboot of The Creep series. Stormzy is the leading actor of the short Big Man, directed by the Academy Award-winning director Aneil Karia, who won the Oscar for Best Live-Action Short Film in 2022 for The Long Goodbye. Karia is world premiering at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, his modern-day adaptation of Hamlet with his creative partner, Riz Ahmed. 

In Big Man, Stormzy's character is Tenzman, a worn-out rapper who is moving to a new house in a neighbourhood. His ex-partner is taking off some of her belongings and he ordered a refrigerator which does not fit the kitchen's design. When two boys try to scam him to get money, he decides to propose an opportunity for them; if they help him move the fridge, he will pay them ten pounds each. However, he scams them back, and the boys get mad at him. Furthermore, he decides to take them on a trip to the beach, so they can enjoy a day in the park and run along the coastline. Amidst the day of fun and interactions, the boys inspire him to produce new songs after a long hiatus from writing and recording new rap songs. 

Shot on an iPhone 16, Big Man surges from the technical proposition of filming it on a cellphone and then developing the concept around it. Consequently, it is notable that this is the case when the children show their brand new models of the telephone for the camera during the climax of the film, the moment that will change everything for each of the trio. Therefore, apart from the motivational aspect of the message to talk to one another, the film has a thin storyline that relies on the cast's performance. Alongside the British rapper Stormzy, Klevis Brahja and Jaydon Eastman complete the central trio. Although the film is a commercial short film focusing on branding a product, it has an emotional core that sustains its length. 

When compared to the director's most popular work, The Long Goodbye, Big Man could not be more different. It approaches a social problem, in this case, foster houses, but it is a more uplifting film when analyzing it in perspective to his Oscar-winning work. Notably, Karia's partnership with Ahmed focuses on the study of the multicultural London, where different religions intertwine to shape the city's cultural vibrance. In Big Man, the chemistry between characters and the original song by Stormyz and Lil Silva are the director's central interest. It works as a standalone, light and motivational story about a worn-out artist. 

Ultimately, Big Man is a simple, heartwarming story about how humans connect and inspire one another.

Review by: Pedro Lima