Southampton Film Week: Short Dystopia

Short film screening and filmmaker Q&A

Monday 13 November 2017

by EAMMON JACOBS

Four short dystopian films were screened on Monday as part of Southampton Film Week's 2017 programme and the audience were treated to a Q&A session with the filmmakers.

MEDICAE (2017, 14 minutes)

Written and directed by Leo Rand, co-directed by Will Whiting

MEDICAE sees an interrogation between a violent religious order and a man who carries a piece of nature that may hold the key to our next evolutionary step. Protagonist Noam (Charles Streeter) is written with messianic undertones, while nature itself is clearly compared to the Garden of Eden. In the Q&A, writer, director and actor Leo Rand referred to Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian drama CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) as a huge influence on his short film. Like the rest of the films screened, MEDICAE shows lavish effects are not needed to create a bleak and hostile world and there is power in its bittersweet ending.

​Watch the teaser here.

LOSING FACE (2016, 5 minutes)

Written and directed by Rachel Stephens

A woman enters a pub looking for her friends but instead finds the patrons inside to be faceless and intimidating. Coming to terms with a past trauma and moving forward play into this short tale of self-discovery. The transition in the opening minute from colour to black and white is a clever way of depicting unfamiliarity and a loss of self. The faceless punters are silently terrifying and prove incredibly effective in unnerving the audience. 

​Watch the teaser trailer here.

TOO LATE TO LEAVE (2015, 5 minutes)

Written, shot and directed by Riyadh Haque

Created as part of the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge and shortlisted for SFW: Shorts, TOO LATE TO LEAVE utilises next to no dialogue but nonetheless immerses the audience into a world so carefully pieced together. In the Q&A, Riyadh Haque detailed that he wanted the audience to find their own answers to the story. With clues as to what has happened carefully placed throughout, the narrative world is plunged into chaos. Like any good road movie, TOO LATE TO LEAVE reminds us life is often about the journey rather than the destination. 

​Watch the film here.

TRANSMISSION (2017, 17 minutes)

Written and directed by Varun Raman and Tom Hancock

TRANSMISSION is David Lynch meets Stanley Kubrick. Or, at least that is who creators Varun Raman and Tom Hancock were clearly influenced by. TRANSMISSION portrays a world not so far from our own, where a terrifyingly charismatic interrogator (James Hyland) manipulates a young man (Michael Shon) to the point of desperation. As the filmmakers themselves describe it, the film is all about “the conflict between the oppressor and the oppressed”. This is clearly evident in the mental conditioning of the protagonist and the abstract surrealism that follows.

​Watch the trailer here.
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