Shorts

An emotionally stunted man reckons with the deep-rooted resentment that he harbors for his ailing mother. A surprisingly and impressively beautiful film given the dark and complex subject matter. Why did you choose this title in particular?    Nurture just popped into my head one day when I was writing a draft of the script. As a title, it sums up the entire story for me. It also provides the perfect ironic counterpoint to the first image we see at the start of the film.  What was it (…)

Julien, 30, visits his daughter Cléa, 6, whom he has not seen for a while. While the child looks for his attention, Julien makes every effort to come home to Lucie, Cléa’s mother. This time he will stay. A touching short with impressive character development, which highlights the emotional complexity that can define a father and daughter relationship. Italian filmmaker Claudia Bottino discusses her short film, selected in the 2023 National Competition at the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival. (…)

Musician Oliver Sim is the main guest of a talk-show that soon slides into a surreal journey of love, shame, and blood. A three-part queer horror movie that features songs from Sim’s highly-anticipated debut album _Hideous Bastard_. Director Yann Gonzalez talks to us at the Brasserie du Court about his new short Hideous. Café court / Short Talk - Yann Gonzalez from ClermontFd Short Film Festival on Vimeo.

SPOTLIGHT ON... Iraq 2009. Ten-year-old Hamoudi has only one leg, but is totally obsessed with football. He and his friends - like the rest of the world - are looking forward to the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester (Messi versus Ronaldo). But then Hamoudi’s television breaks down! Kurdish-Belgian director Sahim Omar Kalifa’s award-winning short is ruthlessly heart-braking, with a beautifully moving central performance by Ali Raad Al-Zaidawy. Baghdad Messi was (…)

The end of the world forces two sisters together, inside a mosquito net, just to survive—but first they must survive each other. Moshari is a deeply atmospheric and haunting short, whose horror tropes and sense of dread only serve to amplify the human drama at its heart. We chat to Bangali filmmaker Nuhash Humayun whose Oscar-qualified short horror premiered at South By Southwest. He tells us about his foray into filmmaking, the ways in which genre films can breakdown language and cultural (…)

We interviewed the duo for the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival, as part of the Brasserie Du Court. A daughter returns to her father’s village in Palestine, which was destroyed in 1948. She journeys through unfamiliar landscapes and is confronted with the reality of her own exile. The film is a moving, experimental and exhaustively researched journey into the displacement and lack of rootedness faced by Palestinians worldwide. It’s an impressive first effort from the two (…)

A poor young man decides to cease to be so, and along with his friend, he tries to flee with a bag full of money from his boss. The last night in his hometown is the two friend’s review, in the form of a farewell, of the places, the emotion and the songs that marked their lives. What was the starting point of the film? The starting point was partly a preliminary work by Ezequiel Salinas, Adieu à la nuit, where a mysterious character rides his moped through the night. In this short film, (…)

A mother with a substance misuse issue, has to prove herself on her path to recovery, to prevent her child from being taken away from her and placed into care. We chat here with director Annette Westwood. Where did the idea come from? Can you tell us a bit about your relationship or collaboration with Trevi? THIS LITTLE GIRL was inspired by the amazing work of Trevi, a women’s & children’s charity & their unique residential rehabilitation centre. Their centre is one of the last (…)

Moments in the lives of Austin teenagers in the heat of Texas summer. How was Birds born? I wanted to make this film, in part, to explore my creative process. My last short film involved a local community of young people whom I spent time with and worked with to make a film about their world. Birds expands on that approach more deeply. This film is more improvised, more off-the-cuff and observational, blurring the lines of doc and narrative in a way that was new for me. It was also my (…)

Parents often push their children to follow their steps. In this case, the father’s obsession with the rally turns the kid into a car tire. Loosely inspired by the director’s childhood, Sierra takes us into the surreal car racing world. What inspired you to make Sierra, an animation film that deals with the pressures parents can put on their children? After talking to my friends and acquaintances I found that the pressure from their parents to choose the “right career” is quite common. (…)