Yesterday at the IFC Center, I went to see a screening of a selection of shorts from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Most were narrative films, with one documentary, and one animated film. It was really interesting to watch a variety of short films, and I keep up with some short films that I see through Criterion, Le Cinema Club, and the Oscar-nominated and shortlisted short films.
My favorites were the following:
Grandma Nai Who Plays Favorites, written and directed by Chheangkea, from Cambodia/France, where during her family's annual Qingming visit to sweep her tomb and have a picnic together, the ghost of Grandma Nai (Saroeun Nay) watches her chaotic family, who just pray to her for money and cars, and sees her likely queer grandson be made to court a girl for possible engagement. I liked the quietness of Grandma Nai sitting by her grandson and looking caring and understanding as the boy is polite but not romantically attracted to the girl, including when he is pressured by his mother to give her Grandma Nai's bracelet as a gift, something he clearly doesn't want to part with. It's a really lovely story that ends with dancing in a karaoke club.
Susana, written and directed by Gerardo Coello Escalante and Amandine Thomas, from Mexico/U.S.A. Susana (Bonnie Hellman) is an American tourist in Mexico City, and is a middle-aged awkward-looking woman with thick glasses and bobbed red hair. She feels alone, and is taken in by a group of young American tourists, and parties with them, despite that they are condescending and clearly see her as their pet for entertainment. Mexican locals look on with wariness at how the group takes advantage of Susana. The story goes some interesting places, and I liked how it reminded me of Margo Martindale's touching performance in Alexander Payne's short film 14e Arrondissment, included in Paris Je T'aime, where she plays a solo middle-aged woman visiting Paris and contemplating her life.
We Were the Scenery, directed by Christopher Radcliff, from the U.S.A. This was a documentary short focusing on Hoa Ti Le and Hue Nguyen Che, who fled Vietnam in 1975 and lived in a refugee camp in the Philippines, and ended up working as extras in Apocalypse Now. It was really fascinating listening to them talk about their memories of the war, fleeing via boat, and looking back on their scenes in the film and pointing out people they knew from the camp who were also cast in bit parts, and looking at their history as survivors of the Vietnam War.
The other films were good, but not as standout to me. Such Good Friends, written and directed by Bri Klaproth, from the U.S.A., focuses on the aftermath of a woman ending her toxic friendship via voicemail and the ripple effects it causes where his family take advantage of her. It was decent, and nice to recognize Mindy Sterling as the friend's mom, and I liked the darkly comedic ending. Hurikán, directed by Jan Saska and co-written by Saska and Václav Hašek, from the Czech Republic, was an animated short where the title character is a man with a pig's head, who is trying to impress a female bartender he has a crush on by rushing to get a beer keg for her stand, running into trouble with gangsters and cops and his own beer thirst. I liked the animation and the weirdness of it. Debators, written and directed by Alex Heller, from the U.S.A., focuses on an early morning debate team arguing a bill on minimum wage in front of their teacher judges (J. Cameron Smith and Kenneth Lonergan). It was decent, good for the first one to open the selections. And Azi, written and directed by Montana Mann, from the U.S.A., focused on the titular teenage girl on a weekend vacation with her best friend's family, and gets into an unexpected match of mind games with another guest. This I thought was OK, but didn't feel like it had much of a point to it, it just ended with a flat resolution to me.
It was really good to go to the IFC Center, as I hadn't been there in many years, and it was formerly the Waverly Theater. I had gone to a midnight movie screening of Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer there nearly twenty years ago, and that film still stands as one of the more chilling films I've ever seen. I had attended the DOC NYC film festival there in 2009-2010, and I'm glad that it's still going strong all these years later. It's a nice theater, situated in the West Village, and was really nice to revisit this past weekend.
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