Caballero Águila - Review

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Twin Cities Pride 2020 was shot during the days the Pride was supposed to take place in 2020, in Minneapolis.

There are no dialogues in this documentary short, just the sounds of the city overlapped with sentimental music, and the image of a man, walking through the city, almost looking for something or someone. But apart from closed doors, the only things he finds are raised rainbow flags scattered here and there in the city.

There is a deep sense of sadness in this film, of emptiness. A man was deprived of his community and is now left to face the city on his own.

The close-up shots of the man create an atmosphere of Minneapolis increasingly upsetting and alienating. Almost dehumanizing. After all, we’re talking about the very city that witnessed, just a few months before, the brutal murder of George Floyd.

The music we hear throughout the film is suggestive, and it allows us to enter the mind of the protagonist and see the city with a nostalgic eye. The direction is very simple, and the concept is clear.

A nice and evocative film about an important moment in the history of Minnesota.

Dead Dreams Falling is a music video about the bond between two twins that goes beyond the earthly state.

The video, directed by Craig Murray, opens with a home recording of a woman, pregnant, who gives birth to two twins. The film goes on to show the twins as adults, facing away from the camera, and holding hands. One of the two twins, the man, is wearing his hoodie and won’t show his profile till halfway into the video.

Through these powerful opening scenes, the director is already establishing a strong concept: we’re seeing two very distinct human beings with an unbreakable bond.

The rest of the song is visually supported by a 6-minute long montage of three images: the image of death, represented by red-hooded figures, several images of tunnels with a bright light at the end, and the two bodies, pierced and hanging lifeless. 

Moreover, adding the sympathetic death of the woman is incredibly powerful.

Murray does a brilliant job in creating a subtle but strong image of reincarnation — a soul leaving the body and being transmigrated to another one ready to be born.

The cinematography is beautiful and the editing is fast-paced and perfectly synchronized with the song. The music is dark and piercing. It conveys a very tense atmosphere and evokes agitation within the two characters, not knowing what will become of them after their respective souls will leave their bodies.

An artistic, moving, and thought-provoking music video about the separation of two souls that lived like one. 

Like.Share.Repost is an 8-minute comedy short film directed by Stanislav Shelestov and produced by Alexandra Tomilina about two goofballs, Seryoga and Andrey, who convince their friend Lena to film them while performing stunts for their youtube channel. Their trump card: they have pills that don’t make them feel pain.

So the two start stabbing themselves, breaking each other’s bones and smashing glass bottles on each other’s heads. All of that, without feeling a thing. What the two clowns forgot to consider is that, apart from pain, there is only so much that a body can go through before shutting down…

The acting is energetic and the film is fast-paced. The actors are funny without being grotesque. Shelestov’s direction is dynamic and the editing is very good. The use of prosthetics makes everything more believable and adds good production value.

Like.Share.Repost is a metaphor, taken to the extreme, of how far can people, and influencers go in order to be relevant in the virtual world.

An irreverent and effective comedy about the potential harm of social media.

If life was a series of evocative clips of nature, it would definitely be represented by the film STAGES, a visual short film written, directed and produced by Camille DeBiase.

This short uses visual elements of nature to explore 13 stages of life — with the first and the last stage coinciding.

The first stage of life has to be in a water element, the fetus doesn’t see colors so it was only appropriate that the first scene would be black and white, which also reminds us of the pregnancy ultrasounds people proudly hand on their fridge doors.  

After that, the moment before birth is shown by the dynamic movement of a camera traveling through a dark hole surrounded by red and orange textured walls, the human flesh, almost like a roller coaster ride. Then the first moment after birth, a blue body of water alternated with air bubbles — the first breaths of the baby. 

The scenes that follow show a meadow of flowers, indicating the playfulness of childhood, the turbulence of adolescence shown by an erupting volcano, the great energy of the waterfalls presumably brought by young adulthood, then serenity of the adult age, the appreciation of life in the images of sun-drenched sunflowers, the peace in the dawn of life, the grayness of old people’s hair in the images of a calm and grey water.

Then finally, the dandelion that blows away with the wind, the lightness of a life that is about to dissolve. Then back again, the black and white water is there to remind us that life is a circle, and we end just the way we started.

The editing is fairly simple, all scenes follow one another with simple crossfade. The music accompanies the images perfectly through this life-long journey.

There is a sort of resignation that comes out of this film. We can but surrender and accept that nature is bigger than ourselves, and that the relentless tendency of life is to grow up, get old, and become again part of a black and white body of water. And that it’s ok, and it can even be beautiful.

Considering that DeBiase also wrote a children’s book, as well as a script about foster care, it appears as she has a true passion to help, cherish and represent at best human development. 

This visually appealing film offers the audience a time pause, sit back and experience life from a natural and peaceful point of view. A beautiful work, full of great intentions.

THIS IS THE END is an 18-page script by Roman Jenni about the unusual encounter between 19-year-old Holger and two tiny aliens on a destructive mission.

One night, after a party, the teenage boy gets a visit from two extraterrestrials. The two harmless-looking beings are then able to enter his conscience and turn his entire life upside-down.

Poor Holger is left to his own devices as he attempts — and fails — a mission on behalf of the aliens. He is sent to a psychic ward where he meets Eva, 20 years old, and together they will embark on a journey that culminates with the overthrowing of their small dictators.

But little do Holger and Eva know that the two little aliens will leave an unexpected gift behind.

Eva is the perfect sidekick any hero needs: free of judgment, she is wise and grounded. We’re in fact wondering why she ended up in the clinic in the first place.

We also don’t have any detail on Holger’s life before the aliens nor why he is “the chosen one”, all we need to know is that Holger cares enough to risk his own life to try and save the planet from destruction.

As we’ve seen and read many times before, aliens are usually portrayed as horrifying and gruesome beings who land on our planet in an effort to take over our lives. But Jenni’s aliens — described as long-legged miniature men with small noses and pointy teeth — don’t seem scary at all.

Quite the contrary, their presence is almost pleasant in the script, with lighthearted scenes full of music and comedy. Not to mention that thanks to their visit they will actually help Holger find true love.

A cute and original Sci-Fi comedy script with a pinch of political satire that will reconcile us with the possibility of any encounter of the third kind.

MINNEAPOLIS by David Anderson is a love dedication to the city that witnessed George Floyd's brutal murder. 

A short stroll through its sidewalks, its parks, under its sky. A sky that saw it all: The beauty and the nightmare. A touching soundtrack follows the protagonist, and it works as a second character of the short movie. It doesn't take too much space, yet it's there. It's a little bit like Minneapolis itself, ashamed of what happened on its streets yet willing to get better, starting from its citizens. 

Minneapolis knows they are trustworthy because they don't close their eyes or turn their back. 

And so does the entire world. 

And when people hold themselves accountable, and as long as there is memory, there can be hope.  David Anderson helped not to forget. 

TIMELESS, directed by Susan Mey Lee Lim, Samudra Kajal Saikia, and Christina Teenz Tan, is a super short video music of 3 minutes and a half.

The video is animated, and it follows the adventure of a little girl and her stuffed lion around the world.

Their journey goes from a sunset in a forest to a snowy landscape, from a beautiful fading of one of Dalí’s most famous paintings to faraway cities. After a close-up with the characters in the space, they dissolve into small paintings made of memories.

Memory is the main topic of the song and the video. And characters live within it and above time. As Susan May Lee Lim states in her director’s note, connections beyond reality are the key to her research. She is not only a director but a surgeon and creative director of a project about companionship between humans and inanimate creatures, empowered by “the new sciences of synthetic DNA, the technologies of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Physics,  to address the global challenge of loneliness and the need for new approaches to companionship in a future world.”

This project makes even more sense in a world that has to fight a global pandemic and has already been challenged by the over-use of social networks that connect us throughout the globe. But do they keep us together?

The music (by Ron J Danziger, lyrics by Christina Teenz Tan, arranged by Matthieu Eymard) is charming and reminds of the sounds of the Country genre. It starts with only voice and guitar and then adds bass, drums, and keyboard.

Timeless is surely a lovely project, a mirror of our current times, and a reason for hope. 

Everything about Edsta's short film TAKE THE VAX is great.

From the plot to the photography, from the flawless editing to the protagonist (played by the talented Fesal Jaber).

From the first images, we realize that we are in front of a quality product, packaged by someone who has been dealing with a camera for quite some time, both behind it and in front of it.

The idea, current but gutted in a very original way, is implemented through a genre that could be considered horror, which also certainly winks at comedy, mainly thanks to how they have chosen to represent the antagonist.

However, what makes this short film perfect is the free interpretation subtext that embodies the script: governments invite everyone to get vaccinated with pounding advertising messages, and relatives and friends (and in this case also strangers passers-by) perceive as enemies those who have decided not to get vaccinated and vice-versa.

But is there someone right and someone wrong about it?

The author does not respond directly but shows a character who defeats the enemy and transforms him into an ally simply by accepting his fate, although literally persecuted and violently pushed in the direction desired by the government and the people around him.

And from there on, his life improves.

However, as the audience, we are left with a question that everyone can answer according to their opinions. And isn't this the primary purpose of a successful story?

Congratulations to the director and author Edsta and to the producer and protagonist Fesal Jaber (a face that we will surely soon get used to recognizing in the industry) for this ambitious project. It's not easy to succeed in telling a story about something that it's still occurring without either overreacting or ending up being trivial. 

But TAKE THE VAX made it, and we enjoyed it.

 Fantasy Of Companionship Between Human and Inanimate is a  14-minute animated short film written by Susan Lim, Christina Teenz Tan and Thomas Z.  Shepard.

 It's the story of a small lion whose soul, once flown from his  body, finds a home in the body of a small stuffed lion, which will  become the little girl Chistina's best friend. Christina will take care  of him, she will call him Alan, and she will not abandon him even when,  now grown up, has to leave home to go to college to become a scientist.  And it is precisely here that Alan decides to entrust his body and soul  to a scientific project to acquire a synthetic DNA that will allow him  to transport himself and have artificial intelligence.

The  illustrations chosen by the directors (Susan Lim herself, Samudra Kajal  Saikia, and Christina Teenz Tan) are realistic but at the same time  retain a fairytale atmosphere, also enhanced by the narration of the  voice over by Adrian Peacock who, together with the perfect soundtrack  (created by Manu Martin,  Joi Barua, Ron J  Danziger, and Matthieu Eymard with the super well known and awarded  Stefano Civetta and Greg Calibi as sound engineers) offers 14 minutes of  story in which the audience can dream with the characters through the  numerous settings, ranging from the jungle of Tanzania to California,  from exteriors to interiors, from days to nights. 

 This short movie is also a tribute to science, an  additional attribute to be considered precious, especially in this  historical period in which science is considered fundamental (it is no  wonder that Susan Lim, writer and director of the short movie, is also a  scientist herself). 

And it is precisely the combination of dream and  science that makes this work extremely original and necessary. 

Science  has always embodied rationality but we rarely focus on the most  important characteristic that unites all scientists: imagination. 

And imagination is the main ingredient that dreamers are made of.