Short Films Review — Sundance 2022

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival has wrapped and the winners were announced. The top prize from U.S. Dramatic Competition went to horror debut feature "Nanny" from Sierra Leonean-American director Nikyatu Jusu while Violet Columbus and Ben Klein’s "The Exiles" won Grand Jury Prize from U.S. Documentary Competition, beating festival favorites such as "Afterschock" and "Fire of Love". Other major prize winners are "Cha Cha Real Smooth" starring Dakota Johnson, documentary "Navalny", "Utama" from Bolivia and "All That Breathes" from India.

From the short films program, there are 59 films selected from 10,374 submissions. 4,701 were from the U.S., and 5,673 were International. The program represents work from 26 countries, from "Lika Liku Laki" / "Makassar is a City For Football Fans" (Khozy Rizal, Indonesia) to "Prin oras circula scurte povesti de dragoste" / "Love Stories on the Move" (Carina Gabriela-Dasoveanu, Romania).

"Hija ti Mengor" / "The Headhunter’s Daughter" from Philippines won the Grand Jury Prize while Walter Thompson-Hernandez’s "If I Go Will They Miss Me", "Warsha" from Lebanon, "Pa vend" / "Displaced" from Kosovo and "Ye che" / "Night Bus" from Taiwan taking main prize in U.S. Fiction, International Fiction, Non-Fiction and Animation section.

 

Hija ti Mengor / The Headhunter’s Daughter

(Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan, Philippines)

Packed in the 15 minutes format, the film follows Lynn, an aspiring country singer from the Cordilleran region of the Philippines as she leaves her family behind and travels on horseback to try her luck in the city where she enters an audition for a singing contest for a Country Music TV show. The film directed by 25-year-old director Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan who previously directed short film "Talimpusod Patungo Sa Paraiso" which won Cineyouth’s Best Experimental Film at the 55^th Chicago International Film Festival in 2019 and "Hilum" (Remedy) as a part of Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival 2021 where it won Best International Student Jury Award. His recent film, and probably his biggest achievment to date was "Hija ti Mengor" which has it’s world premiere at Sundance 2022 and taking the Grand Jury Prize.

It is a film filled with poetic shots of Cordilleran highlands that work together with a song to create a mood. Eblaham’s direction though the story and artistic vision capturing a sense of a place are insightful glimpse into another dreamlike culture.

 

Warsha 

(Dania Bdeir, Lebanon)

 

The biggest surprise in the program is Lebanese production called "Warsha" by writer-director Dania Bdeir which taking the Short Film Jury Award for Interntional Fiction. The 15 minutes film is about a Syrian migrant named Mohammad who working as a crane operator in Beirut as he volunteers to cover a shift in one of the tallest and notoriously most dangerous cranes in Lebanon.

The film opens with exploring Mohammad’s daily activity where he lives with other migrants and co-workers as he have to face toxic masculinity around him. But when he away from everyone's eyes, he is able to live out his secret passion and find freedom.

 

Moving and beautifully made, with excellent camera work and perfect staging, Bdeir allows her audience to sit back and relax into an intimate, character-driven anchored by Khansa’s outstanding performance before she turning up the film into a jaw-dropping stage-show. Simply the best short film at this year’s Sundance.

 

Va pend / Displaced 

(Samir Karahoda, Kosovo)

 

Previously premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it competed the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film and continuously screened at various top festivals : El Gouna, Guanajuato, Toronto, Reykjavik, Thessaloniki and Sarajevo before it landing in competition at Sundance 2022. "Va pend" is one of the strongest films in the line-up.

It tells the story of a post-war Kosovo ping pong club, the “Lidhja e Prizrenit” (League of Prizren) and its journey to present day, through the lives of its two main protagonists and the coach of the club as they have to face a fact that Kosovoan government only brags about the international successes of Kosovo’s athletes instead of investing in the development of sports infrastructure and the future of the youth. Driven by the ambition of keeping their beloved sport alive, two local players wander from one obscure location to another carrying with them the only possession of the club: their tables.

Both simple and poignant captured with a sense of sensibility between the spirit of a community and places where they gather to play their beloved sport for a better future in one of the newest countries in the world. The film directed by Samir Karahoda and was nominated for Best Short Film at European Film Award 2021.

 

Ye che / Night Bus 

(Joe Hsieh, Taiwan)

 

The film begins with a sweet-beautiful scene where a mother monkey feeding her baby with a fruit on a moonlit sky. But what will happens next will shocked you to the bone. A complex story with great chartacters, the series of intriguing events that follows reveal love, hatred and revenge. "On a late-night bus, a necklace is stollen followed by a fatal road accident killed the mother monkey".

The film which is about 20 minutes long and took over 5 years production, directed by Joe Hsieh is a delightfully strange, an elastic combination of noir thriller and natural horror with multiple twists and surprises scene after scene with gloriously dark humor, suspenseful atmosphere and plenty of blood splatter. "Night Bus" is your bad dream come true.