Six of the best films from the Aes­thet­i­ca Short Film Fes­ti­val 2019

In Mar­tin Smatana’s stop motion ani­ma­tion The Kite – one of 400 short films pro­grammed at this year’s Aes­thet­i­ca Short Film Fes­ti­val – the cen­tral char­ac­ter is caught by the wind while fly­ing a kite. With flail­ing legs, he shoots sky­wards look­ing out across the vast land­scape spread­ing out beneath him, con­struct­ed from an array of patch­work textiles.

A vis­it to the ninth edi­tion of this expan­sive fes­ti­val in York can feel a bit like this. With hun­dreds of films cov­er­ing sub­jects as var­ied as the dream life of mon­keys and the last sup­per, the world is revealed from all sorts of angles, through all sorts of pairs of eyes.

Last­ing no more than 30 min­utes, these suc­cinct films get right to the point, cre­at­ing a cat­a­logue of impact­ful snap­shots that res­onate long after exit­ing the cin­e­ma (or, in ASFF’s case, the beau­ti­ful his­toric build­ing host­ing the screen­ing). Here are six of our favourites.

In 1970s South Africa a white teenage boy skates through the glit­ter­ing, sun-soaked streets. ​‘Sug­ar Man’ by Rodriquez plays over spliff shar­ing and hazy after­noon dri­ves. In an afflu­ent leafy neigh­bour­hood, the pro­tag­o­nist intro­duces two black friends to an aban­doned swim­ming pool per­fect for skate­board­ing. The eupho­ria of wheels speed­ing across con­crete is soon blunt­ed by the arrival of the author­i­ties and the rude reminder that this is a free­dom only afford­ed to those of a cer­tain race.

A painter­ly ani­ma­tion fol­lows three young men as they jump head­first into uni­ver­si­ty life in Liv­er­pool. When a new friend alters the dynam­ic of their famil­iar child­hood bonds, the line between ban­ter and bul­ly­ing becomes hard to define. Explor­ing alco­holism, tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty, depres­sion and the strength of friend­ship in just 15 min­utes, Rough­house proves that the best ani­ma­tions aren’t reliant on intri­cate scenery or fan­cy illus­tra­tive tricks but good old-fash­ioned storytelling.

So-called ​“dimwit” Bar­ry and for­mer lover Lin­da, sit face to face beneath the cold lights and out­dat­ed fur­nish­ings of a social club. Lin­da eats cold beans from a can and Bar­ry details how the bin bags under the table con­tain pieces of his grand­moth­er, who he recent­ly mur­dered and chopped up. Deliv­ered in a dead­pan monot­o­ne with some sur­re­al buck­ing bron­co rid­ing thrown in for good mea­sure, Norteños was cer­tain­ly the wor­thy win­ner of the Best Com­e­dy Award.

Nick­named ​“Sodom and Gomor­rah”, Agbog­bloshie in Accra, Ghana is home to one of the world’s biggest e‑waste sites. Con­se­quent­ly, it is a hot spot for the West­ern media to preach the ills of irre­spon­si­ble waste dis­pos­al. Fed up of see­ing his com­mu­ni­ty through such a neg­a­tive lens, local teacher Abdal­lah gives cam­eras to two young boys, empow­er­ing them to engage in edu­ca­tion and tell their own sto­ry. The doc­u­men­tary blends the kids’ insight­ful and fun­ny footage with cap­ti­vat­ing por­traits of the locals and sur­round­ing landscape.

Suit­ably placed in the Exper­i­men­tal pro­gramme, Play off­sets the famil­iar tropes of adver­tis­ing – brand­ing, emo­tive lan­guage, child­hood mem­o­ries, bright colours, excit­ing music – with the hor­rif­ic tale of a son wit­ness­ing the mur­der of his moth­er. We watch, as he relives the events through a TV set whilst his mum stands behind him in the kitchen furi­ous­ly grat­ing her own hand. Con­fused by the sub­ver­sion of the usu­al cin­e­mat­ic sig­ni­fiers, we are thrown into a world that is both repul­sive and appeal­ing in equal measure.

Clara and Marie are not meant to be friends. As the run­ner-up and win­ner of Miss Chazelles-sur-Lyon, respec­tive­ly, their fam­i­lies use them as tro­phies to fight over. The cam­era rarely strays from the fram­ing of Clara’s face, where we can watch in detail her ambiva­lence over los­ing, her joy in Marie and her dis­tress in the ongo­ing con­flict. Togeth­er, the swel­ter­ing heat, close cam­er­a­work and ten­sion of the script, makes for an oppres­sive envi­ron­ment where the mere pres­ence of a beau­ti­ful young woman becomes volatile.

For more on this year’s fes­ti­val vis­it asff​.co​.uk