Before Oscar Nominee ‘Lion’, Director Garth Davis Made This Short Film

Our mates at Show Me Shorts recently highlighted short films from three absurdly talented directors up for Best Director at this year’s Academy Awards. Damien Chazelle (La La Land), Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) all made their mark with extraordinary features, but only after they made sizeable impressions with their short films.

As far as feature debuts go, director Garth Davis has had a blinder with Lion. It crushed the Australasian box office, picked up a couple of BAFTAs, and the Academy nominated it for six categories including Best Picture.

Before Lion, Davis demonstrated his storytelling talent by co-directed the first season of Top of the Lake with Jane Campion. However, it’s the award-winning 2003 short film Alice where his enthusiasm for raw cinematic drama first became apparent.

Alice is a tale best seen without reading a description. What eventuates cannot be anticipated, and it’s in that awful realm of uncertainty that Davis finds connection through sympathy in all its purity – especially in one moment of masculine bonding that feels so achingly, nakedly honest.

“I suppose it was a very little taste of where I wanted to go with my filmmaking,” Davis told Variety. And you can see his flavour in both films. The struggle, intimacy and humanity portrayed so elegantly in Alice is also what powered Lion into Oscars contention.

Watch ‘Alice’ on Vimeo | ‘Lion’ Movie Times