NEW SHORTS: Father
21:00 Mon 12 Jan 2015
The father is the bedrock of the family, or that’s the traditional notion. But no punches are pulled in this selection of films tackling parental love and the fraught relationships between child and father. Watch out for Toby Jones and Jessica Barden in THE DARK, and Chris Langham in THE MEAL.
(90 min)
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DON'T BLAME US COS WE'RE FAMOUS!
Amelia Hashemi 13 mins (, 2014)
Every Saturday Tom spends the day with his son Spencer. Penniless, Tom doesn't have much to offer and at his lowest ebb he creates an imaginary world for his son and they spend their day pretending to be famous. In reality Tom is stealing, lying and doing whatever necessary to hold on to the magic of their father/ son relationship. -
GOING TO MECCA
Jason Wingard 18 mins (, 2014)
Going To Mecca is a comedy about two half brothers, Pete and Omar, who go on a journey of discovery to Blackpool to find Omar's biological father. The journey starts when Mike, Omar's step father, dies in a tragic ballooning accident. The film is about self discovery and identity. It stars Jack Carroll of Britain's Got Talent fame and was made with the prize winning money from the Virgin Media Shorts film competition. -
MY DAD
Marcus Armitage 5 mins (, 2014)
Inherited opinions. Inherited isolation. A short film depicting a Dad's influence on his son’s life. His judgmental character mixed with the boy’s fondness for his dad proves to be toxic and tears away at a world of opportunity and experiences. A graduation film from the Royal College of Art made with oil pastels and newspaper clippings. -
SUNDAY
Gina Kawecka 7 mins (, 2014)
10 year old Jonah sees his absent father once a month for a splash about at the local pool. Together they find fun in the water, but when it stops, Jonah begins to plunge new emotional depths. A tender observation of a boys burgeoning consciousness, buoyed by beautiful underwater imagery and subtle performances. -
THE DARK
Tom Hemmings 10 mins (UK, 2014)
As a family tradition every year on his birthday, a Daughter takes a picture of her Father. The Mother is a memory, a portrait looking back from the wall of the dark room. As the picture develops, a mystery emerges from the darkness which threatens to bring the past sharply back into focus. -
THE MEAL
Jules Stevens 4 mins (UK, 2014)
A Greek girl meets her estranged English father for the first time since she was little. But despite her hopes this belligerent misanthrope clearly has no interest in her. However when she shows him a photo of a day they spent together with the fishermen, the pair make a connection, if only for a moment. -
TRACKS
Claire Oakley 12 mins (UK, 2014)
In the tradition of generations before him, Ed (15) is taken stalking by his father to make his first kill. Their relationship is tested when Ed doesn’t react as expected and their wider connection with Nature is brought into question. -
TRIVIA
Laurence Brook 18 mins (, 2014)
Middle-England patriarch and board-game enthusiast Lindsay Rathbone is hosting a games night as an introduction to, or an interrogation for, his teenage daughter’s first boyfriend. When confronted by a young, black, socially awkward statistician named Blessing, everything Lindsay thought he knew about his country is thrown into disarray, leaving him with one objective: win at all costs. An offbeat journey into the mind of a deluded, middle-class conservative that ultimately reveals the true source of his psychosis and sorrows. -
WINDOWPANE
Mark Duggan 3 mins (, 2014)
A woman (Marie Holliday) watches on from a bedroom window as a man (Peter Simons) drops his daughter off at the marital home. As his daughter closes the door, the man begins to contemplate his past behaviour and everything that he has subsequently lost. Meanwhile, the woman in the window continues to watch on... Windowpane was a short that was completed in under a day for a 24 hour film competition in Derby (Midlands, UK).