Bafta Shorts 2015 Are Coming To A Cinema Near You

By Stuart Black Last edited 109 months ago
Bafta Shorts 2015 Are Coming To A Cinema Near You ★★★★★ 5

Eight cracking, Bafta-nominated short films will go on tour across the country next month starting with a screening and Q&A session with the filmmakers at the ICA in London on 6 March. The films make up Bafta's 2015 British Short Film and British Short Animation categories and include some extraordinary work from young talents who deserve to be celebrated and widely seen.

And the best of the bunch have London connections too. The Kármán Line, directed by Oscar Sharp and starring Olivia Coleman, is a quietly devastating film that begins comically as a woman finds she is floating a few feet off the floor then turns agonisingly tense as her family realises she's not coming down. It may be one of the best works of art you'll see on the big screen this year — even if it did lose the category prize to the charming crowd-pleaser Boogaloo And Graham, about two kids and their pet chickens in 1970s Belfast (which is also part of this showcase).

Then there's director Daisy Jacobs' impressive The Bigger Picture, which won the animation category and is also nominated for an Oscar. The film tells the tale of two quarrelling brothers dealing with the needs of their sick mother, but what makes this piece different is that rather than animate small drawings or miniature scale models, Jacobs decided to take the most difficult route possible and bring to life giant mixed media installations that are actually a bit bigger than real life. It's a technical and imaginative tour de force with a deep human story at its heart.

https://vimeo.com/87007946

There's also very strong work from Aleem Khan, who directs Three Brothers, about a young boy Hamid (Zain Muhammad Zafar), struggling to keep his siblings on the right track after his father abandons them to find a replacement wife in Pakistan. It's a tough tale edged with hope, with great performances from its young cast.

The other films are less London-y but no less engrossing and together make up an emotional roller-coaster of an evening. Third time nominee Ainslie Henderson offers Monkey Love Experiments about chimps in space; there's kooky awkward comedy in Emotional Fusebox; while Slap explores the fine line between machismo and make-up; and colourful cartoon My Dad swirls together family values and dodgy nationalism.

This is cinema at its purest — an incredible set of mini-movies that leaves most multiplex flicks in the dust.

Londonist Rating: ★★★★★

The UK-wide tour of BAFTA Shorts 2015 moves around the country in March, starting with the London screening at the ICA in London and then a return to the capital for the Screentest Festival on 17 and 18 April. For these and other screening details around the UK click here.

Last Updated 19 February 2015