Bumbershoot’s 1 Reel Film Festival, currated by the Seattle International Film Festival, was a charmed parade of “cinematic brevity” that came and went with a bang; a lavish celebration of the art form offering a smattering of delightful shorts. We had the in to cover as much as possible of this three day long engagement that afforded a chance for festival-goers to break up their day with some much deserved short film action and an equal opportunity for SIFF’s bevy of committed programers to delight audiences from the age of four to a hundred with the likes of their distinctive taste for comedy, sci-fi and drama and all the nooks and crannies in between.

Spanning lands from Iraq to Nigeria, the 1 Reel Film Festival was a showcase of some of the greatest emerging talent working the world round. Though we were only able to take in a fraction of the dozens of hours of shorts programs – some time had to be spent watching The Replacements amiright? – we’re here to guide you through the best and worst of what we saw so you can modulate your dials accordingly, know just what to keep an eye out for, know what to avoid and, in the rare case, what must be sought out NO MATTER WHAT. So join us as we discuss the short films of Bumbershoot and the 1 Reel Film Festival.

Rhino Full Throttle (Erik Schmitt, Germany, 15min)
Artsy German, stop-motion short draws together two artists – a loner and a social butterfly – as they express their feelings for each other through their own artistic mediums. Rhino Full Throttle provides all you want from a short; it’s cute but not cutesy, intellectually provocative and well-produced. (B-)

Twaaga (Cedric Ido and Burkina Faso, France, 30min)
Nigerian eight-year old Manu’s obsession with comic books goes to the next level when he had his own superhero suit outfitted by a local talor. Perfectly lit landscape shots and brusque sociopolitical commentary injects bushels of life to this more than meets the eye tale of social responsibility amidst anarchical persuasions. (B+)

Maikaru (Amanda Harryman, USA, 7min)
The tell-all tale of a Seattle native who details the horrors of his past and the hopes of his future. The product of human trafficking, Maikaru was forced to sell drugs from infancy when he wasn’t subject to watching his own mother perform sexual acts for money in front of his own eyes. Tragic, brief and incredibly brave, Maikaru hits hard. (B)

The Gunfighter (Eric Kissack, USA, 9min)
Ron Swanson, er Nick Offerman, is a disembodied narrator of a gunfighter-walks-into-a-saloon-type yarn but when the players begin to hear the narration, things turn wacky fast. The comedy is accessible, the production is admirable and Offerman’s beefy baratone fits perfectly but it’s a touch too broad and been-there-done-that to recommend highly. (C+)

Pieces (Jack Weatherley, United Kingdom, 15min)
Pieces is the kind of short that one makes in film school. There may be no smoking of cigarettes or pale black-and-white cinematography but an unspoken grief ripples through this 15-minute picture that stars Game of Throne‘s Thoros of Myr (Paul Kaye) and Michael Smiley (The World’s End.) The acting is potent if overly veiled with intentional mystery and I couldn’t quite make heads or tales of the production. (C)

The Missing Scarf (Eoin Duffy, Ireland, 7min)
An existential animated comedy narrated by George Takei, The Missing Scarf follows Albert the squirrel’s search for his lost scarf through the thick of the forest as he encountering a variety of woodland creatures each suffering their own insecurities and quirks. A bear with a crippling fear of nothingness makes for an eruption of a sequence in this tasty mini flick. (B)

The Gravedigger’s Tour (Stephen Ryan, Ireland, 14min)
Like all things, professions grow old and wither away. Production jobs turn to automated processes as computers and robots wipe away the need for manual labor. Even the grave digging profession is going the way of the machine, or at least that’s what Stephen Ryan would like to impress with The Gravedigger’s Tour. Ryan’s short hits highs and lows, taking us on our own tour of the meaning of progress and loss. (B)

How to Deal with an Axe Murderer (Adam Estey, Canada, 13min)
Like Scream before it, Adam Estey‘s mocking short is a Dummy’s Guide to not being murdered by axe weilders that goes through all the motions of your run-of-the-mill fright night horror flick, pointing out where to deviate from the actions of those slacker victims. The acting leaves much to be desired and the few twists and turns along the road are without irony or deviation from what we’ve come to expect, making this a devilishly humdrum little farce.  (C-)

The Silly Bastard Next to the Bed (Scott Calonico, USA, 8min)
The subject matter of Silly Bastard seems like a stretch; a newspaper article dug out of history’s annals turned movie that’s only only partially dissected and half-digested. Calonico‘s 13th documentary short blows what would amount to filler on NBC into a 8-minute short that doesn’t really care any weight at all. Simply dismissible, this micro-history lesson brings nothing to the table. (D+)

The Hero Pose (Mischa Jakupcak, USA, 13min)
Second-generation American Mia uses bigger words than her peers but that’s likely something she picked up during her parents divorce. Mischa Jakupcak‘s Hero Pose sees an intimate yet ordinary encounter between a father and daughter, each trapped in their own worldview, as they spend an uneventful afternoon together. Restrained and poignant, The Hero Pose juxtaposes good ol’ Americana conservatism with new-age Yoga philosophy while still being about a father convincing his little girl to drop the vegan routine and share a cup of hot cocoa with him. (B)

This Way Out (Staten Cousins-Roe, United Kingdom, 18min)
This jet black, brilliant British comedy follows business owner Minnie and assistant Maude as they try to keep their Euthanasia Centre afloat. Filmed in Christopher Guest mockumentary style, This Way Out brims with bone-dry comedy that’ll have you rollicking in your seat and gasping for breathe between fits of laughter. An absolute gas for every minute of its running time, This Way Out almost demands the full length movie treatment and ought to make Staten Cousins-Roe a name to look out for. (A+)

Strings (Pedro Solís, Spain, 10min)
Pedro Solís‘ animated tragicomedy is partially based on his own real life experience and follows a developing, unconventional relationship between school child Maria and the new kid in school, who suffers a crippling case of cerebral palsy. Part-schoolyard daydream, part-My Girl and totally reminiscent of Pixar‘s Up, Strings is a short to be reckoned with, full of power and possibility. (A-)

Mr. Invisible (Greg Ash, United Kingdom, 14min)
A smart genre short masquerading as a diatribe on the misery of growing old, Mr. Invisible plays its hand at just the right spot but doesn’t give the audience quite enough credit. Brisk plotting, minor social commentary and a picturesque trot through London make the adventure worthwhile. (B-)

Your Mother’s Maiden Name (Joe Ahern, USA, 4min)
For anyone who’s ever been annoyed by the heinous “security” questions your bank or mobile provider asks of you, Your Mother’s Maiden Name may strike a faint chord but there’s nothing within Joe Ahern‘s short that hasn’t been dreamt up by a irked customer or twenty thousand. Decidedly unclever, Ahern’s single-minded pursuit neither lets the joke go soon enough or takes it too far, leaving his audience with just one long-winded, barely funny rouse. (C-)

Ike Interviews God (Eli Shapiro, USA, 9min)
Given a chance to – as the title suggests – interview God, Ike drips sweat like a coffee machine. You see, he’s no Walter Cronkite. Hell, he’s not even a Katie Couric. He’s been chosen for the task precisely because of how extraordinarily ordinary he is. But Ike Interviews God feels like a missed opportunity, a relatively cheap attempt to draw some lowbrow laughs when Shapiro’s piece would have benefited from more sophistication in this high concept comedy gone wrong. (D+)

Baghdad Messi (Sahim Omar Kalifa, Belgium and UAE, 18min)
Hamoudi (Ali Raad Al-Zaydawi) may only have one leg but that doesn’t prevent him from playing soccer. But when his tv breaks down, Hamoudi’s team gives him the boot…until he can figure out how to get it fixed. Baghdad Messi doesn’t fish for pity or sympathy nor does it ape similar Iraq pieces of late, but that still won’t prevent you from pouring your emotions into this soaring accomplishment of restraint and style. As important as anything depicting the raging conflict in Iraq to date, Sahim Omar Kalifa‘s short challenges us to step into the shoe of the proverbial “other” and dares us to hobble a mere mile. (A)

Salomea’s Nose (Susan Korda, Germany and USA, 23min)
Not quite the comedy it tries to sell itself as, Salomea’s Nose is an exhaustive tale of a Germany Jewish family and the day that inexplicably changes their lives. And no, it’s not the Holocaust, as the circumstances depicted here are infinitely more silly and cosmetic in contrast. Salomea is the charmed recipient of the family’s affection until her two older brothers drop a cowbell on her nose – deforming her for life. Both brother shortly thereafter suffers their own appearance-scarring accident, whether by chance or cosmic comeuppance, we’re left to ponder. (C+)

Thanks for the Ride (Tenika Smith, Australia, 17min)
Jed’s (Matt Callan) life is one big dead end. He’s no family, friends or future. So when his job as a hearse driver is threatened after messing up on an order, he’s forced on a cross country road trip to the coast with a young stranger in tow. As they get closer to their final destination, each begin to unravel and reveal their dark sides and deep-seated fears. (B-)

In Autumn (Rosanna Scarcella, Australia, 15min)
Intentionally, cloyingly vague, In Autumn is a period piece of sorts that sees an aging bachelorette ask a younger man out on for date. The costumery is appropriately gorgeous but hazy intentions and uninspired acting adds up to little more than a retread parable on men being afraid of commitment and the women forced to wait in the wings. (D+)

Fool’s Day (Cody Blue Snider, USA, 20min)
A fourth grade class pulls an April Fool’s prank on their teacher that goes horribly awry when they accidentally end up killing her. The tikes are left to pick up the pieces – metaphorically and physically- making for a deeply comedic romp with the right amount of blood and guts to go along with it and a preternatural sense for comic timing. (A)

A Great Man (Joshua Dawson, Australia, 17min)
Ry and Dusty are two best friends living in the suburbs of Australia. Overshadowed by a war hero brother and living under the pretense of daredevil Dusty, Ry is called on to be more than the calming voice of reason he usually is and must rise to the occasion. A meaningful coming-of-age tale, A Great Man celebrates the passage of coming into your own and proving your worth not just to others, but to yourself. (B-)

The Man Who Knew a Lot (Alice Vial, France, 20min)
Terry Gilliam in execution and Twilight Zone in style, The Man Who Knew a Lot is an understated dystopian tale of life-management in the age of commerce. People live out their lives in department stores as living, breathing mannikins, used to help sell the products with which they spent their days and nights. Delightfully imaginative and poignant right when it needs to be, The Man Who Knew a Lot is a remarkably relevant case study of what happens when we give ourselves over to the things we own.  (B+)

Deadbeat (Danielle Morgan, USA, 12min)
As a response to the call of Vampire-mania, Danielle Morgan‘s Deadbeat walks a familiar path of moody vampire and mortal host feuding over their obvious differences. She craves garlic, he only goes out at night. And so it goes. A cinematic example of putting the cart before the horse, Deadbeat seems like a parody in desperate need of something to parody. The genre has been – like said horse – beat to death and Morgan manages to find nothing new to mock. (D+)

Syndromeda (Patrik Eklund, Sweden, 22min)
Leif arrives on the scene bloody and in the buff, waggling his lumpy man butt like it came caked in mud and shining for all the world to see. As he’s rushed to the hospital, people begin to realize that this fugue state is more than it seems. Leif has been abducted by aliens. For as goofy as the concept sounds, Patrik Eklund handles it with solemn, almost humorless, care. There are things at play larger than what can be contained within a 22-minute short, making Syndromeda a ripe candidate for the full length, indie sci-fi treatment. As is, it’s still a mighty strange, awfully curious watch. (B-)

———————————————————————————————————

For more coverage on film festivals in the Northwest and across the globe, be sure to follow us on Facebook and on Twitter.

Follow Silver Screen Riot on Facebook
Follow Silver Screen Riot on Twitter