AFI: Best of the FEST Part 1

As the end of the year and the Oscars draw near, we have a few more festivals we are honoured to be covering, including the always stellar AFI FEST! The programmers have curated several thoughtful blocks spanning animation, narrative and documentary containing some of the best short films of the year, including Oscar hopefuls previously covered here in Snow Bear, The Singers and Shanti Rides Shotgun as well as other favourites of ours like Nervous Energy and Pavilhão. Robin, Josh and Pedro have dug into the lineup and selected several gems as their favourites from the fest. For Part One see reviews of Carcassonne Acapulco, Desi Oon and Water Sports below!

Carcassonne-Acapulco, dirs. Marjorie Caup, Olivier Héraud

Carcassonne-Acapulco is the story of an asshole pilot (Mr McAndrew) and his equally obnoxious co-pilot (Mr Marc-André) - both of them slightly sexist, racist and above all else indecisive to a tee. Working alongside the two men is the loyal but fed up stewardess (Miss Smith), who has seen it all and wants nothing else but to get on with her day.

Mid-flight, and somehow mid-song playing the banjo with their backs towards the windshield, the two men are interrupted by Miss Smith who brings the startling news that someone is knocking on the boarding door - from the outside of the plane(!).

Bewildered by the sudden stranger, the three of them proceed to investigate the matter. Who is this person and what do they want? Naturally the pilots launch into full on debate mode, combing through every version of the scenario at hand while getting absolutely nowhere.

The stop-motion format of the film tethers the line between familiar and absurd. Playing into flight related themes by showing the title card in airport board styling or having the stewardess make callouts to the passengers from time to time, only to throw a curveball into the mix like Miss Smith casually carrying a pyramid of martini glasses or the plane having what I can only describe as a switchboard to call ground control. It keeps the viewers on their toes, mesmerized by the richness of each frame.

I want to give a special shoutout to the hair design of our flight crew. Both pilots are sporting impressive mustaches which twirls in the wind. Coupled with the familiar pilot sunglasses, the pair look plucked straight out of Top Gun. Yet the two of them have nothing on Miss Smith, whose bangs have overtaken her face to the point of being nothing more than a discontented mouth longing for the next smoke break.

It is one of those films where you sit back and laugh in frustration at the story, fascinated by the inventiveness of the creative minds behind it and just marvel at the circus that unfolds. I may not know what to do in this bizarre situation, but I do know that I would definitely not want to be a passenger on this particular flight.

Review by: Robin Hellgren

Desi Oon, dir. Suresh Eriyat

To set the scene; Imagine you come across the alarming and bizarre fact that out of the 40 million tonnes of wool produced in India every year, 32 million tonnes are discarded. Furthermore, and perhaps even more horrifying, 80 million tonnes of wool is imported annually on top of that. So you have no other choice than to take action and spread the word.

If your first instinct is to make a Hindi musical stop-motion film entirely out of wool in different forms and colors, then boy do I have a recommendation for you!

Desi Wool (Desi Oon) is just as catchy as it is intriguing. Through the use of everything from the raw wool and yarn, to knits, carpets, felting and beyond, the animals, people, and even scenery used in this film were lovingly crafted by over 50 artists, and meticulously arranged into stop motion frames over a period of six months of shooting. All that work creates an incredibly rich and tactile world that moves perfectly alongside the music and sound by Rajat Dholakia, Resul Pookutty and Vijay Kumar.

It is wool reflecting on the significance of wool through the use of wool. Along the way this reflection covers practicalities like the many byproducts we get from herding sheep, the societal significance these have had to humans throughout the ages, and finally moving into spiritual territory through the worship of Balu Mama - a mystic, yogi, and a saint born and raised alongside sheep as a shepherd.

Whether you subscribe to the mysticism or not, the resulting film is remarkable in its own right, and I found myself constantly rewinding to catch small details in the craft on display. It is a fun exercise in what can be achieved with a hefty dollop of imagination and an equal amount of determination to bring the vision to life.

Review by: Robin Hellgren

Water Sports, dir. Whammy Alcazaren

An outrageously energetic queer love story set at the end of the world, Water Sports finds sad boys Jelson and Ipe (Elijah Canlas and Renz Javier, both perfect), high school students deep in love, and preparing themselves to survive a waterless Philippines. Climate change is having serious impacts in the Philippines—in the real world as well as in the incredibly heightened fantasy of the film—as it causes frequent and severe natural disasters, with sea levels rising, resource shortages, and environmental degradation. Jelson and Ipe find that life may be harsh and unforgiving, though they believe what their teacher says, that a strong heart and mind can triumph with an iron will.

Rogue director Whammy Alcazaren’s uses his low-budget inventiveness and cross-media anything-goes ethos to find a restless innovative atmosphere that keeps Water Sports moving through a deranged collection hybrid formats, with collaged cutouts of storybook pictures, VHS static, inventively handmade-looking visual effects, deliriously bold filmmaking choices (one camera shot through heart-shaped hands seems inspired by Agnès Varda), and more sweaty butts onscreen than anything since Mektoub, My Love.

Water Sports has a lot on its mind but it’s also enjoyably dumb and incredibly horny. Since this is a film by Whammy Alcazaren, there is way more piss drinking that your normal coming-of-age or climate change film; Water Sports dials up to eleven the silly eroticism and carnal queer vibes of Alcazaren’s (already electrically sexual) first short film Bold Eagle. Before a pivot to directing, Alcazaren was a multiple award-winning production designer, and the look of Water Sports veers from inspired to just plain insane: “DRINK YOUR PEE RESPONSIBLY” blares one classroom banner, like queer cinema iconoclast Gregg Araki made a film on a Wes Anderson set.

Authoritarian Governor Talampas, played imperiously by Paolo O’Hara records messages letting his constituents know that they are recording the highest heat in the history of the Philippines. When every drop of water becomes as precious as it is in Dune, “Don’t cry or you die! Don’t cry or you die!” chant the boys as they warm up for gym class—gym class being, obviously, an excuse for Alcazaren’s camera to linger on lithe, sweaty torsos and bulging short-shorts, the dehydrated teens trying to get through a workout that the rising heat has made a clammy impossibility.

In their attempt to live, laugh, love their way through the climate apocalypse, Jelson and Ipe fill their time with an impatient creative spirit. The boys fantasize about star basketballer Luka Dončić, send each other texts, while memes and emojis fill the screen, and tell lame jokes to pass the time (“Do you know what’s a good icebreaker? Global warming!”). Alcazaren packs more themes, ideas, and images (a dance off! a musical number!) into Water Sports’ tight 19-minute runtime than most directors could fit in a feature film.

Jelson and Ipe soon learn that the best way to survive the end of the world is to do it together. Filipinos are dying from heatstroke; the shadowy hand of climate change is reaching for them as a 7.5 magnitude earthquake causes a tsunami and the Governor calls to “collect bodies for liquification.” From the beginning of disaster to Water Sports’ genuinely astonishing, mind-blowingly apocalyptic final shot, Jelson and Ipe are together forever, even when the Philippines come to an end, surviving a changing world through the power of love.

Review by: Joshua Hunt