Leeds International Film Festival: Highlights from Madness and Civilisation: International Short Film Competition 5

David

Spanning a variety of genres and settings, the daring and often surprising collection of films found in the Madness and Civilisation strand of Leeds International Film Festival’s International Shorts Competition uproot convention every opportunity they get. The films are intimate to the point of discomfort, pushing boundaries to unearth the sociopolitical tensions laying under the surface of our relationships to one another. The result of this sharply confrontational array of styles results in a must-see strand that proves that no art cannot exist without politics.

The Manila Lover

Three films in the programme particularly stand out as embodiments of this idea. First off is Johanna Pyykkö’s surreal romantic tragedy The Manila Lover (Norway, 26 mins.), which follows a Sweden businessman whose dreams of spending his life with the Filipino woman he’s having an affair with deteriorate when her expectations of the relationship are made clear. This darkly funny takedown of masculine expectations features two raw, locked in performances from Øyvind Brandtzæg and Angeli Bayani, who sell both the intimacy and growing strain between with ease. Pyykkö highlights her protagonist’s fragile mental state with a dizzying array of bold stylistic choices, from unnerving close-ups to mind-bending dream sequences. Instead of just a simple comedy of errors about a couple on different pages, Pyykkö shapes her film into a bold statement on the assumptions of power in relationships and how those assumptions reflect a deeper desire for societal control.

So What If The Goats Die

Sofia Alaoui’s genre-bending religious meditation So What If The Goats Die (France/Morocco, 22 mins.) follows a Moroccan shepherd whose religious convictions are challenged when a local village begins experiencing otherworldly events. Taking the long-standing cinematic convention of the strangeness of a close encounter and injecting it with a fresh perspective, Alaoui manages to dig at the heart of how profoundly our spiritual beliefs are disturbed by the introduction of factors in our lives we can’t quite explain. The pairing of a breathtaking lead performance from Fouad Oughaouand Alaoui’s evocative sense of atmosphere make this a sci-fi drama that works in the tradition of Hollywood classics while making itself stand out through a strong sense of religious and community identity.

One of the funniest and downright entertaining shorts of the festival, actor-turned-filmmaker Zach Woods’ directorial debut David (USA, 12 mins.) follows beloved comedic powerhouses Will Ferrell and William Jackson Harper as a therapist and patient thrown into a session that goes wildly off the rails. Armed with a sharp-edged sense of humour and an unexpectedly humanist portrayal of sad people just trying their best, Woods manages to poke fun at the pressures of modern American life whilst caring deeply for his subjects. This is a short that captures all the spirit and possibility of short-form filmmaking, managing to tell a generational, multifaceted story in the span of only twelve hilarious minutes. You’ll never look at hoagie sandwiches the same way again.