With February gone, a wonderful film time lies behind me and I'm glad I was able to achieve most of my film goals, but also thrilled to be able to do so in smashingly crunchy, sunny weather and I can't imagine closing the winter time in a better way.
The last station of Film February 2025 was The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, which took place quite late this year, in March, but considering the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights and Berlinale both took place in succession in February, this was a good choice.
I missed/passed all feature film screenings due to a combination of lack of time and lack of interest/already having seen most, but apart from the last two showings on Sunday, I watched all short films, which were divided into following blocks; Hostile Environments, Capitalist Horror, Het Horror, Cults, Midnight, Life Cycles, Pop Horror/Carnevalesque, Sensory Overload, Queer Horror, Revenge, Grief and Nightmares. As each year, I'm super happy with the Final Girls' selection, they always do a great job, and as usual, I have my own highlights which I'll be shortly pitching here (since in my opinion short fiction isn't very good for full reviews). Anyways, here we go!
Hostile Environments
Autophagy
Dir. Edie Laurence, UK, 2024
Stop motion animation isn't everyone's cup of tea and can be a hit or miss for me too, as I find it can be visually confusing and hard to follow. And despite this, I was a fan of Autophagy because of its truly original and impressive plot, plus, it has a lot of heart, can build a consummate universe in limited time and space, and, of course, features octopi. It follows a couple who lives in a time when people are hit by a waterborne disease through which they turn into an octopus and society resents, hates and excludes the afflicted. Would people even want to live on land with stupid humans under such circumstances?
Capitalist Horror
Eat the rich. Literally, eat them. When there's nowhere left to go, when you're dealing with the ugly, greedy people, sacrifice them to the old gods at the solar eclipse and consume them. No shame in that.
I'm so very glad to see this movie about the shady side of sex work in this category about capitalism.
I recently read an article written by a sex worker on the recent Hollywood trend of rewarding movies about prostitution by male directors at the Oscars (now two years in a row) and their tendency to miss the mark, to present it as a fun and safe profession, while it is nothing but an industry which caters to the rich penis (her wording was different). This story is a refreshing representation, it follows a similar train of thought but takes it further, breaks heart, but stays on the ground while doing so, neither dramatizing nor diminishing sex work, and shows the inherent creepiness of taking control over someone's body through money.
Het Horror
Hexes 4 Exes (click to view full short film)
Dir. Marianne Chase, UK, 2024
Don't get mad - Get heathen! Call this hotline if you ever need to hex your ex!
I don't know many people who have been told and taught in their youth on how to deal with sexual assault, our mothers just usually didn't talk about it, I know mine didn't. Maybe because it's something you don't want your daughter to ever experience, but it's so important to let young women know how to act in certain situations, how to react to certain approaches. I loved that this movie did that in a very matter of fact way.
Cults
This was so scary, so impressive, wow... A group of people, all either grieving or in pain for different reasons, meet to form a death cult for a final act. One of them, a young man, is especially skeptical of the cult leader's ulterior motives, and ultimately, the most unexpected of them turns out to be the worst of them.
Midnight
Last to LeaveWritten and directed by Mary Elizabeth Ellis, USA, 2024
Almost closing time in a quiet neighborhood bar... The regulars party with two strangers whose intentions turn more and more obscure as the night advances. Really nice twist in the end, the acting reflecting the strangeness of the nature of the two female leads was very well done.
Mama Doom Man Parts (click to view full short film)
Dir. Anne Hickey, David Mayer & Krystal Ancona, USA, 2024
Oh.my.gods. This music video about two band members finding the corpse parts from a local mausoleum to assemble a third band member looks SO REAL! I really thought I'm watching some snuff stuff for which people died, but once you catch the humor it's all good and fun.
Very original and sweet short movie about the fading technology of video cassettes and how their nature changes with what's recorded on them.
Dir. Lena Albin, Australia, 2024This short conveys the same feeling one must be feeling when live witnessing a train or car crash: you're touched, stressed, nervous, disgusted and anxious, but you just can't bring yourself to look away. What a bloody nightmare...
Life Cycles
En Mille Pétals / In Thousand PetalsDir. Louise Bongartz, Belgium, 2024
Pop Horror/Carnevalesque
A super fun category which was my favorite this year!
A young violinist in an orchestra giving in to the pressure of being a flawless musician, and letting her inner snake monsters out. Lovely how the snake-shaped "inner monsters" were made from a technical point of view, and the ending was very sweet. I'm all for movies who end in friendship, especially between women.
As the plant-man says: "I'm Ms. Albright and I'm alright!" Go, plant people!
Sensory Overload
I recently started watching YouTube shorts about fermenting stuff, because I vaguely knew Sauerkraut, beer and Kim-chi are super healthy, but wasn't really aware you can ferment all sorts of things (and catch lots of diseases while doing so, so do it carefully) and there's even restaurants specializing on it.
This short is about one of such places, a restaurant where a talented chef is about to lose her job, and needs to give it all she's got, literally, for one last meal to convince investors.
It was a visceral experience, nothing more to say, I'd love to re-watch this movie some time.
Written and directed by Clare Chong, Singapore, 2024
In a private school the mute cleaning lady witnesses the murder of one of the students, and while the murderer leaves the body behind, she steals his tongue and saws it into her own mouth in the hope that she will be able to talk.
I'm amazed by SE Asian horror, and this one was genuinely, genuinely creepy and disgusting. Considering it is also touching on themes like class differences and privilege, it was somehow moving too.
Queer Horror
A trans woman who wants to get rid of her dick makes a deal with a cannibalistic cis woman that she can eat it.
I'm not sure why I liked this so much, I just found both actors and their acting so genuine and kind of adorable, to be honest.Revenge
So another festival done, another Film February over, and with it, the winter is over too, and we can come out of our eldritch lairs and start living again, hooray!
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