Melbourne International Film Festival 2019: Best Shorts Awards

For young and emerging directors, it can take a single short film successfully hitting the festival circuit for your career to change overnight. A recent example being Ari Aster’s controversial 2011 short The Strange Thing About the Johnsons paving the way for Hereditary. The Melbourne International Film Festival, alongside its wide selection of features, documentaries and VR programs, is considered to be one of the most prestigious short film competitions in the Southern Hemisphere, as the MIFF Shorts Awards are Academy Awards accredited with the winners of the Best MIFF Short, Best Australian and Best Documentary awards eligible to submit their films to the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.

This year’s awards were judged by a jury consisting of award-winning journalist and filmmaker, Santilla Chingaipe, actor and MIFF ambassador, Anna McGahan and Katharine Thornton, CEO of Sharmill Films. The Award categories include: Best Short Film, Best Australian Short Film, Best Cinematography in a Short Film, Best Documentary Short Film, Best Animation Short Film, Best Fiction Short Film and an award for Emerging Australian Filmmaker.

Playing as a block on MIFF’s final day, I had the pleasure of watching each of the award winners, with my thoughts on each title below.

Brotherhood (Meryam Joobeur)

City of Melbourne Grand Prix for Best Short Film

In Brotherhood, Mohamed, a shepherd in rural Tunisia, and his family are faced with the abrupt return of the eldest son and his young new wife.

Tracing a father’s failure to grapple with the sudden return of his radicalised son, Brotherhood is a stark portrayal of a very real situation; emulating the tragic experiences that thousands of Tunisians are coping with through the microcosm of one fractured family. Meryam Joobeur’s tense demystification of this Tunisian crisis forces us to gaze at the ripple effect of each family member’s misguided actions, packing a greater punch to the gut than most features can muster.

The Egg (Jane Cho)

Film Victoria Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film

Day after dull day, under the punishing and watchful eye of an elderly woman, a young girl becomes determined to claim a large Easter egg as her own – no matter the cost.

The Egg feels like a classic Pixar short brought to life, as Jane Cho, through the assistance of cinematographer Matt Toll (who recently assisted on MIFF 2019 selection Little Monsters), shows an inventive capacity for establishing visual economy through a series of comical compositions. Recalling our childhood memories of arranging Indiana Jones-styled heists for the most minor of rewards, this short is just as sweet as the titular egg that evades the adorably deadpan Kim Doan.

Feathers (A.V. Rockwell)

Blackmagic Award for Best Cinematography in a Short Film

Elizier must overcome his memories of a devastating past in order to cope with the overwhelming circumstances in his present. Feathers is an examination of trauma at the intersection of race and masculinity.

Acquired by Fox Searchlight last year as a potential Oscar contender, Chris Soos’ vibrant photography in Feathers is worth celebrating – reminiscent of James Laxton’s work on Moonlight – helping empower A.V. Rockwell’s poignant observations of behaviour, particularly that of the African American children that occupy the struggling The Edward R. Mill School for Boys, a building that seems to be fighting for survival at the same rate as its occupants.

Lost Rambos (Chris Phillips)

RMIT University Award for Best Documentary Short Film

The influence of Sylvester Stallone reaches far and wide in the Papua New Guinean highlands. Tribal disputes were taken to a whole new level when automatic rifles were introduced in the 1990s; the guns are now the ultimate ticket to power.

Bombarding its audience with its pointed juxtaposition between the breath-taking Papua New Guinean highlands and the bloody violence that has erupted within its foggy thickets, Lost Rambos arrives at quite the convenient time – playing at MIFF a month before Sylvester Stallone unleashes another violent chapter to the Rambo story, further perpetuating the images emulated by the tribes beautifully captured by Australian documentary filmmaker Chris Phillips.

Passage (Kimia Hendi)

Mountain Goat Award for Emerging Australian Filmmaker

After losing her father, Shirin gains a different perspective on loss.

Every year at MIFF, between its premiering features and shorts, brings a bevy of new and emerging Australian voices that are on the cusp of becoming major talents, and the Mountain Goat Award is a terrific way of facilitating this process. Kimia Hendi’s tender study of grief and loss has us anticipating her eventual follow-up feature, one that hopefully gets to play at a future Melbourne International Film Festival date.

Daughter (Daria Kashcheeva)

City Post Award for Best Animation Short Film

Daughter is an expressionistic recollection of missed opportunities for embrace and connection between a father and daughter.

When watching a short like Daria Kashcheeva’s Daughter, which mounts the sorrowful story of the reconciliation and disconnection between a father and daughter within a wonderfully creative mixture of paper-mâché puppets and traditional animation, it only highlights the necessary distinction between talking about animation as a medium, as opposed to a genre. Recalling the adult sensibilities of Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa, Kashcheeva’s mosaic of an intricate relationship is quite the impressive piece of filmmaking – both in its animation and directing.

The Field (Sandhya Suri)

Cinema Nova Award for Best Fiction Short Film

A woman dreams of a different life away from the pressures of being a wife and mother.

Sandhya Suri’s cinema verite depiction of a woman’s sexuality in rural India tackles many issues within its compact runtime; intimacy, shifting sexuality and the female burdens of motherhood and providing for your family are all covered in The Field, depicted with a pragmatic honesty and sympathy towards its afflicted protagonist.

Do any of these short films sound appealing to you? Let us know in the comments!