Short film highlights, from top left: Lea Tupu’anga, Morning Hate, Rochelle and Pack Rat. Photos / supplied
Short film highlights, from top left: Lea Tupu’anga, Morning Hate, Rochelle and Pack Rat. Photos / supplied
Brevity might be the soul of wit but its many other virtues in cinematic storytelling are on display again at this year’s Show Me Shorts Film Festival (SMSFF). The event is heading to 40 venues around the country this month featuring a programme of 85 shorts, including 26 home-grown efforts.They’re being screened in groups among 11 categories.
Some local shorts are on their second outing after being prize winners at the New Zealand International Film Festival. That includes Lea Tupu’anga (Mother Tongue), which started its year at Sundance before heading home via the Sydney Film Festival and winning the NZIFF Patrons Award for Best Film. Director Vea Mafile’o and writer Luciane Buchanan’s film is about a young Tongan speech therapist who has lied about her language skills, putting her at odds with an elderly Tongan patient.
Also on the NZIFF prize-winner list and showing at SMSFF, is Rochelle, the delightful tale of a young bogan and a dead mate’s car, from comedian-turned-writer-director Tom Furniss. It comes with a winning performance – and mullet – in the lead by Benjamin Sawyer and its stock-car racing scenes put paid to any notion that short films are action thrills-free.
Also feeling like it’s a ready-made possible chapter from a bigger feature rather than a working drawing from one is Morning Hate, the impressive directorial debut by actor Dean O’Gorman, which is getting its premiere at SMSFF. In the film, the one-time star of The Hobbit movies shows the sort of enthusiasm for authentic recreations of World War I that Peter Jackson has long held, with his clever tale of stretcher bearers in the trenches on the Western Front. Morning Hate shows O’Gorman certainly has an eye – he’s long worked as a photographer – and he’s destined for more time behind the camera.
Another gripping local film having its debut is Pack Rat by writer-director Lucy Suess. Her film is a quietly unnerving, nicely acted tale about the only girl in a gang of rural teenage mates who finds she’s no longer safe in their company. It is just 18 minutes long, but it has a feature-strength emotional punch.
Show Me Shorts Film Festival is at selected cinemas and community venues until October 28.
