Six great films from the Aes­thet­i­ca Short Film Fes­ti­val 2018

At this year’s Aes­thet­i­ca Short Film Fes­ti­val, 300 films show­cased some of the best tal­ent from film­mak­ers and visu­al artists around the world. Chal­leng­ing the length, genre, envi­ron­ment and con­cept of com­mu­ni­ca­tion at its core, sto­ries in short films coex­ist­ed along­side fea­tures and vir­tu­al real­i­ty expe­ri­ences in the festival’s biggest edi­tion yet.

In their breadth and depth, the short films offered a mag­nan­i­mous amount of promise in this medi­um alone. Across a stag­ger­ing num­ber of gen­res, these six sto­ries of love, loss, tech­nol­o­gy – and pota­toes – stood out, both in their imag­i­na­tion, their wit and in the way that just a few min­utes said so much with what could seem like so lit­tle. Here are six of our favourites.

In the region of Provence, in the South of France, 11-year-old Camille is on hol­i­day with her fam­i­ly. At night she plays Truth or Dare with her old­er broth­er, Tur, in their cramped orange tent. Dur­ing the day, they lounge by the crys­tal-clear swim­ming pool of the camp­site, while their eyes wan­der to the teenage girls who have tak­en a lik­ing to Tur. The vivid colour palette sets a land­scape of com­ing of age through the gen­tly unspo­ken real­i­sa­tions of friend­ship, loy­al­ty and sexuality.

Pro­grammed in the ​‘Lone­ly Hearts’ screen­ing, one of the six Com­e­dy selec­tions themed by ​“defined soci­o­log­i­cal realms”, Sex Ed has a braver under­bel­ly than the imma­tu­ri­ty of its class­room clowns might sug­gest. Ed teach­es Sex Edu­ca­tion and loves it with the gen­uine enthu­si­asm that his stu­dents will always mock. His per­son­al wor­ries cloud his lessons one day, let­ting a smart tragi­com­e­dy tran­spire – a wor­thy win­ner of the Best Com­e­dy award the NFTS film­mak­er Alice Seabright and her team took home.

The sun­baked colours of 1960s Amer­i­ca feel inex­tri­ca­bly tied to Wes Ander­son, but Scott Corbett’s con­tem­pla­tive dra­ma Good Night But­ter­fly rests on a more solemn foun­da­tion to tell a sto­ry of loss and long­ing. A young Chi­nese woman moves in with a Jew­ish fam­i­ly after her father is killed dur­ing the Watts riots – while he was pro­tect­ing the store they owned. Through the resent­ment of the moth­er and the curi­ous desire of the son, the sto­ry deliv­ers wis­dom and poet­ry about the rela­tion­ships we choose to hold onto, which cul­mi­nates in a poignant shot that chan­nels the melan­choly end­ing of Call Me By Your Name.

A doc­u­men­tary about love could take its time to explain the suf­fer­ing of heart­break and the nev­erend­ing pain of long­ing. But thanks to nine-year-old Mari­bel, True Love in Pueblo Tex­til bot­tles the but­ter­flies-in-your-stom­ach feel­ing in its sim­plic­i­ty, with­out ever sound­ing naïve. The inter­vie­wee explains in lucid terms how the world’s old­est afflic­tion has got to her, unashamed­ly con­fid­ing in the film­mak­er and the view­er how her class­mate José makes her feel when she sees him – and how they will even­tu­al­ly, undoubt­ed­ly, live hap­pi­ly after together.

The syn­op­sis may sug­gest a fan­tas­ti­cal sci-fi fairy tale, but Robot & Scare­crow was filmed at a music fes­ti­val. The evoca­tive waves of Nils Frahm’s ​‘Says’ wash over the slo-mo shots of colour­ful fes­ti­val­go­ers, set­ting the back­drop for a fleet­ing love sto­ry between two beings who only want to lose them­selves to each oth­er. Direc­tor Kib­we Tavares cre­ates a lumi­nous micro­cosm in which the human­i­ty of both lovers comes to life, as Jack O’Connell and Hol­l­i­day Grainger bring pow­er­ful emo­tion to the tit­u­lar pair through motion cap­ture. There’s very lit­tle dia­logue, but the mar­riage of such an ethe­re­al score and the devo­tion that these two alien char­ac­ters give each oth­er allows the film to be felt far beyond the lim­i­ta­tions of its far­fetched premise.

It’s a hum­ble but urgent warn­ing. Lily Bee is try­ing to help you. She knows how much we need pota­toes and has suf­fered the con­se­quences of not respond­ing to what they need as well. Pricks takes two min­utes to spell out the most sim­ple, stu­pid, but unde­ni­ably hilar­i­ous mes­sage that doesn’t need any fur­ther frills to enter­tain. Ben­jamin Bee directs this zero-bud­get spoof ad which expos­es the great­est dan­gers of microwave cook­ing with absurd humour. What­ev­er you do, just nev­er for­get to prick your pota­toes – or you’ll regret it forever.

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