Shorts
Reviews, previews and highlights of features and shorts from the myDylarama team and guest writers.
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Interview with Ariq Khan, director of Transit
30 January 2021, by Abla KandalaftWhat motivated you to tell this story? Do many people find themselves in this “transit” situation in Bangladesh? I have always wanted my films to be about the common man, the type of characters whose stories are not as often seen in modern cinema. Blended with that is migration, which I feel is a very important topic in a global context. Every year, thousands of Bangladeshi workers travel to the Middle East, South East Asia, and even to Europe for work. To some people, having that visa (...) -
Interview with Paul Mas, director of Précieux [Precious]
29 January 2021, by Elise LoiseauWhat materials did you use to create the characters? The puppets’ bodies are made of silicone. We make a sculpture, then a mould where we place a frame made of aluminum wire that helps it keep its stance. Then we pour in the silicone which will take the shape of the initial sculpture as it hardens. A dab of paint (tinted silicone), costumes and voilà! The figures’ heads (for the other children) are moulded in polyurethane resin, a hard material. They’re hollow, so they’re lighter. The (...) -
Interview with Daniel Gray, director of HIDE
29 January 2021, by Brasserie du Court team, Clotilde CouturierWhy were you interested in the hide-and-seek game as a starting point? The game of hide-and-seek didn’t really come first. I was muddling about with some ideas to do with my situation of moving from my home country, and all the different types of buildings and faces I saw around me, and I took a piece of one of these stories and focused on that, because it felt like it was doing what I wanted it to do with the emotions I wanted to conjure in an audience. That was the game of (...) -
Q&A with Brendan Canty, director of Jam
29 January 2021, by Abla KandalaftI notice the film was directed by yourself and written by Sam Lazar. How did that collaborative process come about? Did you develop the idea together or where you involved as a director after the script was written? I came on board after the script was written so had no correspondence with Sam. However, he kindly trusted me to edit the script and so I re-structured it a little bit to work within my vision and I also made some of the language more "Irish" (Sam is American). Did you have (...) -
Q&A with Theja Rio and Nancy Beso, dir and prod of Angh
28 January 2021, by Elise LoiseauThe film is set in a village in Nagaland in 1963. It follows the life of a father and his son, the last ones to convert to Christianity in their village. The film follows their struggle to hold on to their tradition and religion. Café court / Expresso Video - Theja Rio from ClermontFd Short Film Festival on Vimeo. The film is in International Competition (I3 programme). -
Q&A with Bastien Dubois, director of Souvenir Souvenir
28 January 2021, by Clotilde CouturierWhat was your thought process over the years about the desire or need to address this topic, which touches your inner circle as well as the narrative of National History? Hello, so first of all thank you for this interview and thank you for allowing our films to be seen at this time! It’s a difficult question because that’s what the film is all about – why and how I wanted to make this film about my relationship with my grandfather, formerly a conscripted soldier in Algeria. First of (...) -
Winter Edition Line-Up!
22 January 2021, by Mydylarama teamThe EFN short film festival winter edition is nearly upon us! Given the roaring success of the last few live-streamed events, the team is once more adopting their winning formula and showing carefully curated early shorts from first time and emerging directors. Once more, two prizes are up for grabs: the audience award and the critics’ prize. Judges this time around are Mydy’s [Abla Kandalaft->https://www.ablakandalaft.com, Genesis Cinema’s [Christina (...) -
EFN True Grit Award Winners
6 October 2020, by Abla KandalaftFollowing Emerging Filmmakers Night’s latest edition, True Grit", Mydylarama had a chat with both prize winners about their work, their sources of inspiration and filming during Covid. More about the winning entries, Single and Stretched Out here. First up, Critics’ Prize winner Ashley Eakin who directed Single, talks to us about representations of disabilities on film, shooting in Canada and her many upcoming projects. Audience Prize winner Alastair Train, who won the award for (...) -
TRUE GRIT! EFN reveals its autumn edition...
21 September 2020, by Mydylarama teamAnother trimester, another season, another Emerging Filmmakers Night . Although the apocalypse is kept at bay, Covid is still raging, and given the fun had last time, the team decided to keep their winning formula and hold another live-streamed event on 28 September 2020. And so, in that spirit of enduring resilience, behold the autumn edition: TRUE GRIT! EFN is a festival that celebrates talented filmmakers’s early work and gives a platform to many gems that might not have yet reached (...) -
Interview with Louis Chan, director of Stationary
3 July 2020, by Abla KandalaftLouis won the Audience Award at the June Emerging Filmmakers Night live-streamed event for his short film Stationary. EFN partner Mydylarama interviewed him the following day, giving him an opportunity to talk at length about his work. Stationary won the Audience Award for the Bottled-Up edition. The characters in Chan’s short are fully-rounded, three-dimensional and fully engaging to watch. Within a restrained setting, he manages to create quite a rich storyline and relationship between (...)