Nominees for Best Canadian Short named at 2021 UWPG Film Fest
Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure as Canadian filmmakers get personal
Jason Pchajek, staff writer
There is a wonderful focus that film can give to everyday experience. Opening a window into lives we know, don’t understand, want to experience, or never want to relive. It’s personal, in a weird way, and that personal feel is what makes the nominees for “Best Canadian Short” at the 2021 UWPG Film Festival so special.
Perhaps you will see a piece of yourself in one of these, as six filmmakers pull back the curtain on life experiences we can all recognize.
In a Moment’s Notice
Camerawork and cramped setting get you right into the film, feeling as if you’re standing over the lead’s shoulder, watching this all unfold.
Actor turned writer and director Alec Carlos turns in a short and solemn film, which portrays the all-too-common experience of when, as the title implies, life and how you experience it can change In a Moment’s Notice. We’ve all be there, on the phone, sitting in your car, laying in bed, when someone gives you news you need to hear, but never want to.
The film is personal, painful even, as we watch Atlas reckon with his situation, knowing that it will not only impact him, but everyone he loves. The final shot alone makes the film worth it, in all its stomach pit-making glory.
Between Us
Beautiful, simply beautiful.
Cailleah Scott-Grimes’s film Between Us feels like a million-dollar feature shrunk down to crisp 17-minute run time. One could go on at length about the way the film is produced, from the lighting to the colour-grading, to the way shots are framed — not to mention the gorgeous location — the film technically impresses, but what really makes the film is the acting, and the story.
Kei — a trans man in rural Japan — is caught between two worlds. The simplicity and comfort of a hometown that does not truly accept him, and the promise of freedom and happiness in Tokyo, where his Canadian partner longs to live.
A wonderful portrayal of queer and trans existence in a world still evolving, the leaves you with the thought, ‘what must change for acceptance to flourish? Must trans people change their situations to suit the world? Or should the world change to accept them where they are?’
Perhaps Kei says it perfectly. “I’m not interested in being ‘in’ or ‘out.’”
Apnoia
Film has this amazing power to give voice to the voiceless, and to shine light on things that happen in the shadows.
There is also power in documentary films, allowing victims of sexual violence to tell their stories, personally, with no filters, nobody to cut them off, nobody to downplay their trauma, or blame them for what occurred.
It seems that, through film, we are quickly building up an archive of experience, where survivors can tell their stories, and viewers can finally see all the diverse and complicated ways people have been victimized. This is what Vanessa Payri does with Apnoia, which recounts the experience of being assaulted by someone you trust. A time when consent was given, then rescinded, but the act was not.
This film is hard to watch, and that’s the point.
All there is to say is this. Oui, tu es tres tres tres indestructible. Avec ton histoire, tu es puissante, et tu es entendu.
Big Little Show
Every writer has been there at some point in their career. It begins with a kernel, an idea. Maybe it’s one line, one scene, maybe a title, but eventually it unfurls itself in your mind to become an entity on its own. A story flowing forth from your mind in waves.
You write it, edit it, get a few others to look over it. Then you package it up and send it off to the powers that be.
Only to get rejected.
And rejected.
And rejected.
Gemma Eva’s animation follows that journey, with a quirky and fun musical that reminds one of the Disney animated films of yesteryear. The only animated film in this award category, make sure to tune in for this one.
Down to Earth
Ok…we’re 30 seconds in and I’m already crying.
With a deeply personal, poignant narration by Scott Cooper overlaid over strange yet perfect apt footage of an astronaut and diver in downtown Toronto, the two combine to form one heck of an emotional ride.
Exploring the process of losing the love of your life, and a chance to find love again, Down to Earth is a kick in the heart anyone can understand. When you lose someone you love, sometimes knowing is the worst thing, the agony of waiting, watching the descent. Like staring at an hourglass and counting each grain of sand.
But then what comes after? What do you do after your heart is shattered? Well, you pick up the pieces. Hard, emotional, turned hopeful, this film by Christopher Fernandes is wonderfully inventive and artful. A little slice of life doc contained to just 10 minutes, it is a film to watch from the Canadian program.
Lucy
Sometimes you just meet someone, and they shatter your life in all the best and most interesting ways.
This is what Anna Buksowicz’s film Lucy does. Aptly titled, the film does not follow the titular character of Lucy but follows Alex who follows Lucy. Stuck in the anxious world of undergrad academia, where deadlines, readings, assignments, and exams are all there is to life, things change for Alex the day she meets Lucy.
Exploring bisexual attraction, from a place where that wasn’t even thought of for Alex, has stops and starts, but once it gets going, who knows where it’ll end.
Watch as Alex is dragged from the world she knows, into something else entirely. One of freedom, of exploration, of excitement. Everyone one of us knows an Alex, and everyone knows a Lucy – heck you might even be one of the two. Which makes this film even more impactful.
Well shot, well written, Lucy is a must-watch for the Canadian Shorts program.