LA NORIA ***** Spain 2018 Dir: Carlos Baena. 12 mins Writer-director-editor Carlos Baena has worked in animation for two decades with Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar, which means that his C.V. includes titles like TOY STORY and JURASSIC PARK. LA NORIA, made in collaboration with over 100 other international…
Browsing: Toronto After Dark Film Festival
MAGGIE MAY **** Australia 2018 Dir: Mia Kate Russell. 14 mins At the wake for old Sylvia May, who took a fatal fall, the eponymous Maggie May (played with astonishingly detached venom by Lulu McClatchy) utters what will prove to be the story’s defining line: “I didn’t know what to…
PLACE **** USA 2019 Dir: Jason Gudasz. 10 mins A disorientating, elliptical portrait of a fracturing family within the framework of a familiar modern American “Bad House” horror story. Nick Hurley, his girlfriend (Emily Green) and her young daughter (Stella Edwards) move into a long-empty house, with Hurley big on…
PUZZLE **** Switzerland 2019 Dir: Vincenzo Aiello. 4 mins Late at night, a young woman (Marie Wyler) finds a random piece of jigsaw puzzle in her home – followed by other pieces scattered around her home. The completion of it seems to portend her fate in this superbly constructed short…
YOUR LAST DAY ON EARTH **** Spain 2019 Dir: Marc Martinez Jordan. 13 mins Shot in Academy ratio, this is an arresting, original, label-defying short film from the talented writer-director of the well-liked technophobic horror feature FRAMED (2017). The set-up is wonderfully offbeat : a young man (Enric Auquer) dressed…