HollyShorts Film Festival 2023: Opening Night

Beginning on August 10, 2023, this year’s HollyShorts kicked off with quite a start. With an overwhelming selection of shorts ranging from horror, comedy, drama and animation, sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin – so its always best to go back to the beginning.

In Too Deep (Chris Overton)

Chris Overton‘s In Too Deep starts on a beach, at the edge of the deepest part of the world – the ocean. It immediately delivers the gravity of the depth of grief before we even know our main character’s loss. As we watch a husband and wife enjoy a day at the beach, the camera pulls away from the joy to reveal itself as a home movie, the camera panning to take in the apartment it resides within. While the home video captures the brightness of the day on the beach, the apartment is dreary and in disarray, driving even harder the grief experienced by Ben (Stephen Wright).

The film holds on this moment, allowing the audience to feel as stuck as Ben, unable to move forward. But life does move forward, In too Deep introducing his wife Carol (Rachel Shenton). Each is struggling with their grief following the loss of their daughter Jess (Madeleine Mckenna). The film is effective in establishing the status of their relationship following their loss, introducing them separately to add an even deeper level to the grief experienced. This grief is experienced differently for each person as well, their isolation from one another leaving them to their loneliness.

Much of the film works with its imagery to further establish both the grief, all while working to build to its shocking conclusion. As Carol visits Ben to check on him, audiences are allowed to fully understand the weight of this particular day – it would have been their daughter’s eighth birthday. In Too Deep takes on its full identity as Carol sees a new home video Ben has been watching, one that was never a real life event. As she watches her daughter blow out the candles on her eighth birthday cake, Carol discovers the devastating and heartbreaking methods of coping Ben has enlisted. Using AI, Ben has turned a girl he has been holding captive into his daughter, recording the events he will never have with jess and altering them with AI. Yet, it is not just Ben’s actions that deliver the sinking feeling in your stomach, In Too Deep revealing the true ramifications and power of AI technology and deep fakes.

In Too Deep finds the pit in your stomach, its implications of abuse and ominous warning for the future seemingly too real to imagine.

How to Rig an Election: The Racist History of the 1876 Presidential Contest (Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler)

What if you were told that the contested 2020 election was not the worst that the United States had ever seen? This is the challenge presented by Emily and Sarah Kunstler‘s How to Rig an Election, one it backs up with strength and proficiency in an impressive ten minute recap of history. While our country has remained divided since the 2020 election and the words civil war trend on Twitter with alarming frequency, 2020 was not as bad as it gets. Rather it was the 1876 election results following the most contested election between Rutherford B.Hayes and Samuel J.Tilden.

At a time when party values were reversed, Hayes ran under the Republican banner with Tilden under Democratic. As the election results were coming in, each declared themselves the winner, Tilden having won the popular vote and Hayes having won the electoral. While the contention divided the country, it opened a window for white supremacy to survive following the civil war. For Hayes to win the election, he agreed with Tilden to bring an end to reconstruction in the south, a movement that was rapidly providing equality to the recently freed slaves. Furthermore, he agreed to withdraw union soldiers, leaving the black population undefended.

With America becoming a a dominant industrial force following the civil war and the withdrawal of the north in the south, regression would ensue. Jail populations once made up of 90% white quickly became 80% black. Education and voting rights were restricted, Jim Crow laws easily passed and enforced. How to Rig and Election delivers a slice of history that has you wanting to learn more and dive deep into the ramifications of one of the most highly contested elections in American history. It also leaves you wondering, what would have happened if Tilden had won – where would be today?

Narrated by Tom Hanks, How to Rig an Election is jam packed with history that opens the conversation, working to both shine a light on the past, all while giving a foreboding sense to the future.

7 Minutes (Ricky Gervais)

How long does it take to save a life? 7 Minutes from Ricky Gervais contemplates just that, giving its central duo a serene, yet poignant moment of connection. The film opens on the train tracks in an isolated part of the woods. The silence is broken as a man (Joe Wilkinson) breaks through the woods, taking his place along side the track. There is a resolve in his movement, a quiet finality. Having read the synopsis for the short before watching, audiences will already be aware that he is contemplating suicide utilizing the train as a means to an end.

Yet, he is not the only one to have reached this point. A ways down the tracks, a woman (Seroca Davis) emerges just the same from the woods, taking her place along the side of the tracks. There is an awkward yet quiet acknowledgment of each other’s presence. They have each come to the same spot with the same conclusion in mind. Yet, as they draw closer to each other physically, they begin to connect on an even deeper level.. How long does it take to save a life? While the short my be titled 7 Minutes, it proves all you need is a moment.

Gervais crafts a uniquely quiet look at the power of the human connection – the lifeline of just being seen, of being noticed. While it may have taken seven minutes to ground the connection for the chance to nurture it in the future, it took only a moment to change course.

Shadow Brother Sunday (Alden Ehrenreich)

One of the most ambiguous films of this year’s HollyShorts was Alden Ehrenreich‘s Shadow Brother Sunday. A multi perspective narrative, it’s not a film that is as it seems. It begins with Cole (Alden Ehrenreich) surrounded by his eccentric and self centered family, immediately standing out from those around him. There is an excited energy that surrounds him, but one that he is detached from. As audiences come to learn, the family has gathered to to attend the premier of  Cole’s brother Jacob’s (Nick Robinson) new film. What they discover is that this more about them than it is about the brother.

While not immediately engaging, Shadow Brother Sunday will creep up on you, cutting as deeply as the truth it secretly harbors. This is a film about the human connection and the consequences of its absence. Cole has struggled for what seems like years with his band, getting no where ahead while falling further and further into debt. With the success of his brother’s film, his shortcomings are only further contrasted. Yet, much of this drips with the distain of his family, his lack of accomplishment a dark mark in comparison to his brother. As the quietly proclaimed black sheep of the family, his conscious is left with little support to stay on the true and narrow and no one to turn to.

Yet, the devastating beauty of Shadow Brother Sunday is the dual perspective that it unravels for the audience. Not everything is as it seems, and even success has its costs. The film ends on a note of uncertainty, reactions and aftermath just out of reach for the viewer. The human connection potentially fractured forever, left to the void of an uncertain final image. A quiet short, Shadow Brother Sunday will leave you devastated.