They have just fallen in love, yet know little about each other. During a romantic walk through the forest, they try to connect. Answering her questions about important episodes from his life, he reveals himself to her. But his questions… Continue Reading
Nose Nose Nose Eyes, directed by Jiwon Moon, is yet another great short film from the festival circuit to appear on Alter. The story, as described by the producers is very simple: The terrifying day a ten year old girl… Continue Reading
Looking to create a short that captured the multicultural aspect of Switzerland, Christophe Saber’s Discipline is a dialogue-heavy film brimming with strong social themes. Based around conservations in a grocery store, which quickly get out of hand, Saber’s short is sure to… Continue Reading
A bizarre, yet compelling amalgamation of tones, Sew Torn is both dark and clever. A fun little ride short film that continually manages to surprise the viewer across it’s quick run-time. It’s also a perfect encapsulation of what I love about the… Continue Reading
Skywatch is a near-future sci-fi vision directed by Colin Levy, centering on two teen boys who hack an ubiquitous consumer drone delivery service called NexPort in order to prank their neighbors. Naturally things go badly, and when a dangerous conspiracy is uncovered by… Continue Reading
Whiteout from writer/director Lance Edmands is a tense, well-crafted single-take short. The gimmick here, as a cinematic device, is that everything takes place from the perspective of the backseat of a car. Taking place on a dark rural road in the… Continue Reading
Set on one fateful night, six friends gather for their monthly ‘games night’ and accidentally unleash a demonic force that might tear them and their friendships into pieces. Don’t Move is the 8th slice in Bloody Cuts’ anthology of short horror… Continue Reading
Resolut directed by René Schweitzer, Alex Negret, Jonas Bock, Romina Ecker, Jovana Reisinger, Luise Lindner, Elena Hell and Aline Bender; it’s a very grim short with great performances about two imprisoned women. One is severely injured and the other one… Continue Reading
The kind of short film where you’ll need a minute to recover after the credits roll, Tom Noakes’ Nursery Rhymes disorientates its audience initially via a surreal, contextless opening. Confusion gives way to a slowly unfolding puzzle however, serving up revelations all the… Continue Reading
Walking alone in a city shouldn’t be an adrenaline-inducing experience. Taking public transport by oneself shouldn’t be a fraught choice. For women it can be though, and Shelly Lauman’s Birdie taps into that universal fear and confronts its viewers with a scenario… Continue Reading
When a desperate Grace (Deborah Puette) walks into the Queen of Persia Gold Emporium, all she wants is to get in and out with some badly needed cash and a shred of her dignity intact. Things do not look promising… Continue Reading
Teemu Niukkanen’s Saatanan Kanit (Fucking Bunnies in the english version) is an absurd comedy about a “normal” man pushed too far and the limits of tolerance, but aside from its themes, it is also just a guaranteed good time. With a… Continue Reading
Matt Porter’s Damage short film is just a perfectly executed little slice of life; short, understated, and hilarious, and also, it’s still emotionally real. It’s the kind of film that covers a spectrum of highs and lows in just seven minutes. Mitch &… Continue Reading
When the train doors fail to open at the train station, the people inside get understandably irked. But when the same happens at the following stop, and the one after that, things quickly start to get out of hand. Animals… Continue Reading
Polaroid is a dark and stylish thriller that made a splash on the festival circuit in 2015. Set in a large Norwegian farmhouse in the middle of winter, two young ladies, Sarah and Linda, are clearing the place out after the… Continue Reading
From a seed to war, from meat to love, from indifference to apocalypse. An attempt to capture the world in a nutshell. A kinetic stop motion journey that captures the very essence of humanity, Fabio Friedli’s multi-lauded animation is the aptly… Continue Reading
A brilliant analogy satire to life on Earth, Happiness tells the story of a rodent’s unrelenting quest for happiness and fulfillment. Cutts imagines humanity as a horde of rats, adored by the marketing god, bewitched by Black Friday or Cyber Monday.… Continue Reading
David Brundige’s short Haircut is a well-written fight verbal sequence, but in a way it is depicted with the same attention to rhythm and space that any good action flick would. In the film a modern couple devolves into increasingly vicious recrimination when, to her… Continue Reading
Die Badewanne is the story of three brothers who dive into their childhood in order to recreate an old family photo; a unique present for their mum. Though well intentioned, the process runs less than smoothly, when the siblings open up… Continue Reading
After a young man makes a shocking discovery about his recently deceased father, he must decide whether he can accept the truth about who (or what) his dad really loved. Babs, directed by Logan George and Celine Held, examine’s a familiar… Continue Reading
Directed by John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke (GHOST + COW), BIG DATA “L1ZY” follows a regular, suburban American family who purchase an Alexa-style smart home device to make their lives easier and more efficient. When the A.I. assistant, capable of learning… Continue Reading
In the middle of the Winter, on the frozen Saguenay river in Quebec, Canada, Guillaume goes back to old traditions to try to get his honor back. Destrier, by director Philippe David Gagné, playfully uses an anachronism to create a short… Continue Reading
Los gritones (The screamers in the english version) was written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Roberto Perez Toledo, in which a man and a woman are looking out from a graffiti strewn rooftop and start screaming for fun. However, an uncomfortable situation awaits them, when… Continue Reading
A young woman, tired from her daily routine, falls asleep on the train ride home. What happens next is unfortunately predictable. She awakes to find a man doing something so wildly inappropriate, it will have a lasting and damaging effect… Continue Reading
A tale of two foolhardy boys goofing around in the Quebec wilderness, Jeremy Comte’s captivating short film Fauve soon takes a dramatic turn that sees its young protagonists pitted against nature. Shocking and unflinching, this deserved winner of the Special Jury Prize… Continue Reading
Set in Japan’s capital, Tokyo Project tells the story of a mysterious romance between two strangers (played by Elisabeth Moss and Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they explore the hidden treasures of the city. Written and directed by longtime Girls collaborator Richard Shepard, who helmed several of the HBO series’… Continue Reading
Fern is a six-minute short film commissioned by Channel 4. It is written and directed by Johnny Kelly, produced by Nexus Studios and starring Monica Dolan. A recently widowed woman finds a withered houseplant. As she nurtures it back to life the plant,… Continue Reading
Angelina is a 22 year old community college student, yearning to get out of her small town. However, her online persona, Lolz-ita, is anything but average. With a huge Instagram following, she gets thousands of likes on her feminist, sex-positive,… Continue Reading
Charlotte Regan’s docufiction short Drug Runner follows a young boy whose life is quickly spiralling out of control, dealing drugs and getting arrested; this is a real-life tale highlighting how easily a few bad turns in your childhood could lead to a… Continue Reading
Kyle just got out of a relationship, so his best bud Mike takes him out for a bike ride. Exercising in the outdoors sounds like the perfect way to help him process the break-up, until Mike gets something off his… Continue Reading
A 20 minute dialogue-driven dramedy where two people literally sit in one place for the film’s entire duration isn’t exactly the easiest sell for an online audience. But in Joe Gillette’s sweet and expertly performed little slice of life is… Continue Reading
Graham Parkes delivers a hit of stoner short film comedy spiked with some mad paranoia in Craig’s Pathetic Freakout. It is the tale of one man and how he completely loses his shit after smoking some weed. Parkes and his team… Continue Reading
Krishna and Garfield wake up after a boozy night out, hungover and confused. Guarded, the two awkwardly dance around each other and the events of the previous evening, with pieces of the puzzle slowly added to paint a fuller picture of how… Continue Reading
Clara and Francis are having a chill day, eating pasta, reading the newspapers. When Francis tries to initiate a more pleasurable activity, everything seems to get in the way. A refreshing portrait of the un-glamorous side to sex, director Geneviève… Continue Reading
La Huida (The runaway in the english version) from director Víctor Carrey, is one of those films that gives the viewer too many details right at the beginning. However, it does neatly tie everything up in the end, from the random passing… Continue Reading
There’s not much story to “It began without warning”; it’s more about the immediate and intense thrills and the completely unanswered questions, thrown into a quick and tense 5-minute short. One could imagine that this piece is simply a “proof-of-concept”… Continue Reading
“Swindon – A Portrait of Youth” is a snapshot of opinions about growing up in the UK. Teenagers rarely have a voice and a platform to speak about their aspirations and fears. With far-reaching political decisions being made around them,… Continue Reading
Passion Gap by writer/director duo Matt Portman and Jason Donald is one of those rare films that make you realize that the human condition is more than a struggle for many and that life across the world isn’t as familiar as… Continue Reading
Hot Seat is a coming-of-age story written and directed by Anna Kerrigan, that blends diverse genres in a unusually thoughtful way. Set at a birthday party populated by teens from an all-female school, the film plays with “Mean Girls” social hierarchies… Continue Reading