The Civic was graced last Saturday evening with the Auckland Opening Night of Show Me Shorts, New Zealand’s biggest short film festival. It was a ceremonious occasion that handed out local awards – and one international one – to a host of very deserving filmmakers. To my utter shock/delight, top honours went to an animated film.
THUNDERLIPS and Candlelit Pictures scored the NZ On Air Best Music video for Breath by Sheep, Dog & Wolf, an emotionally intense montage of close-ups of different people not breathing in very difference circumstances. You really need to see this thing to understand its impact. It’s brilliant.
Simon Baumfield won the Panavision Best Cinematographer Award for Feeder, a gloomy horror I went bloody nuts for last year. If they gave out an award for sound design, this film would take that, too.
Katlyn Wong took away the Starnow Best Actor Award for her fantastically fragile performance in Wait, a raw slice-of-life tale about a Chinese migrant mother stuck in a heart-wrenching limbo in 1980s New Zealand. Writer-director Yamin Tun also scored the New Zealand Film Commission Special Jury Prize for the unquestionable filmmaking talent she displayed in that short.
Tim Ellrich landed Best International Film for Die Badewanne (The Bathtub), a one-shot comedic tale with a tender message about brotherly re-connection that sees three siblings trying to recreate a childhood photo for their mother. It’s an ingenious premise executed perfectly.
Hugh Calveley secured Final Draft Best Screenplay for Cradle, an ultra-slick sci-fi about a girl stuck in a space station with her father – the only other passenger – in critical condition. This beast is a production powerhouse that begs New Zealand to make a big sci-fi feature.
Bryan Shaw earned himself DEGNZ Best Editor for his work on Shout at the Ground, Joe Lonie’s story of a band in a van spewing their guts out as the driver explains what happened to their money. Any editor who had to look at THAT much vomit deserves an award IMO.
The big winner of the night was the animated charmer Spring Jam, with Ned Wenlock crowned as the DEGNZ Best Director and handing him and Georgiana Plaister the Lightbox Best Film Award too. It’s somewhat crazy to think that a simple family-friendly tale of a stag looking to find his musical groove during mating season could take top honours, but the skill and creativity to make this beautiful short tick is worthy of the acclaim. As with their crazy-good music video Apache by Danger Beach, Wenlock and his crew get playful with scrolling backgrounds and contorting shifts in perspective. To see them pull it off in a narrative like this is a pure joy.
Like the Show Me Shorts judges said: “Spring Jam makes you smile from the opening frame to the closing credits. It is a charming example of an original artistic vision that was executed with skill and precision.”
