Since 2021 a new independent film festival has arisen and that is the Starling film festival, screening on the waterfront of our very own New Brighton in the Light Cinema. Their fourth edition of the festival garnered hundreds of films applied from dozens of countries to their seven categories, which was then filtered to sixty and eventually down to fifteen for the night on the water. All fifteen films had that flare every short needs but here are my picks for the four best:
GAME OVER – Adrian Cacciola (France)
As this film’s credits rolled, you almost knew immediately it was going to win the ‘Aviary Audience award’ and so it was. A truly hilarious film imagining an innocent scrabble day between an elderly couple, one in which the husband quickly realizes the words are becoming reality and can be used to kill off her and the misery he talks about what she gave him. The witty script of this short really elevates this to the next level and it would be a pretty hard task to not have an absolute blast listening to Adrian Rawlins hate his wife and seeing Jean-Yves Lissonet’s kubrick stare of death, giving Patrick Bateman a run for his money. A deliciously evil short.
AS LONG AS THEY DON’T FIND US – Maja Górczak (Poland)
A director who left us just one film, a film she made attempting to articulate her trauma from the holocaust torn Poland and the people and love she lost. A beautiful almost surreal tribute documentary to one of the first women to study directing at Łódź Film School and the braveness of her life before and after the war and the importance of preserving such media that otherwise wouldn’t allow such a beautiful doc. All brought together with a wonderful edit and my vote for the ‘Aviary Audience award’
ALMA – Lea Neumayer (United Kingdom)
The heart tearer of the festival came in Alma, a necessary and important short about Alma, an elderly woman in a small town, grappling with loneliness and longing for connection after the death of her wife. Fighting with the feelings of letting herself move on from her loss for her local shopkeeper Joan. Viennese filmmaker Lea Neumayer captures the loneliness of old age in a British small town with such loving care, creating an incredibly complex and lively character in Alma and those who love her, also touching on themes of queer acceptance in a more often unexplored area.
THE STRANDED – Sergi Páez (Spain)
This technical marvel of a short tells the horror of the last survivor aboard a space base, awaiting a rescue she knows might never come, all while a creature out in the beyond threatens to join her. While only clocking in at 13 minutes, this is a short that will get you hanging off that seat, packing all the dread of a feature into one nightmarish short that had possibly the most striking visuals and production design of the whole festival, topped by a brutally impressive performance from Claudio Trujillo. A quiet world that I hope we get a lot more of in the future.
A truly fantastic display of shorts from around the globe, all showing here at home in the Wirral, I have no doubt that this festival will grow and grow with every edition, bit late now but make sure you’re there the next time round. And also a massive Thank you to Molly Hall and the rest of the team for inviting us over. You can read more about the festival on their website https://www.starlingfilmfestival.com/. See you next year.
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