As with every single year, we try to cover as much indies as possible, but we just never have the time to see them all, sadly. As with previous years, this top five comprises five of the best indies I saw all year. It’s not to say the films that didn’t make the list are terrible films, or that the films the other writers on Cinema Crazed enjoyed aren’t good, either. This is merely my own subjective list of five independent film shorts I highly recommend to you that I saw this year. It’s good to remember this is opinion, and not gospel.
If you want to see what films the Cinema Crazed collective consider A+ Indies, visit the link included!
Also, be sure to let us know some of the best indie films you saw all year!
Directed by: Dylan Pasture, Lauren McCune
Dylan Pasture, and Lauren McCune’s mock documentary is a heartbreaking and gut wrenching look at an idealistic young girl named Amber Lynn Weatherbee who wants love. She wants to find the ideal life out there where the man of her dreams can introduce her to the perfect, but she’s not too sure where he is. Maybe he’s on ABC’s “The Bachelor”? Director and writer McCune is great as Amber Lynn, a beautiful woman who has a lot to offer, but can never seem to find what she’s looking for. It’s a thought provoking look at our search for happiness.
Directed by: Vincent Lambe
Based on the transcripts of the horrifying murder of two year old James Bulger in 1993, “Detainment” is a shocking and disturbing dramatization of the interview of his murderers. Much to the sheer disbelief of detectives, Bulger’s murderers were two ten year old boys who inexplicably kidnapped, tortured, and killed him after hours of physical harm done to him in their custody. Vincent Lambe’s short drama is polarizing, but a brutally haunting look at the crime that unfolded and the following interrogation that resulted in recounting of what happened, but no answers as to why. Leon Hughes and Ely Solan are fantastic, especially in the way they portray two boys that inexplicably decided to commit a heinous act with zero justification. It’s a horrendous but compelling depiction of a senseless crime.
Directed By: Laura Moss
Laura Moss’s experimental mock documentary is an excellent and bizarre look at a comedian’s eternal nightmare, or perhaps anyone’s eternal nightmare. Without any actual explanation or clarity, Moss’s film is set on a night in 1987 where comedian Allen Anders is filmed on a grainy camcorder filming his comic routine in front of an audience. Filmed with a deadpan tone, “Allen Anders” has so much inherent lunacy bubbling beneath the surface that’s left to interpretation for the audience. While it never clarifies what it is we’re watching, “Allen Anders” is a gem that will inspire some interesting debate.
Directed By: Iker Arce, Miriam Ortega Dominguez
What feels like a tale about a young girl becoming a vampire ultimately transforms in to something much more sinister, and directors Iker Arce, and Miriam Ortega Dominguez are able to create what is a very intriguing and mystifying tale that connects vampirism to coming of age. Nerea is a beautiful young girl who finds a sudden infatuation with blood when she realizes she’s menstruating. Finding a hunger for blood and lacking an appetite for everything else, Nerea looks for a way to confront this appetite, while thinking back to where it all started. “¿Quieres Que Hoy Te Bese?” is a much more human horror film than it originally seems, and tackles a lot of fears about growing up, and heinous crimes committed to those we love.
Directed By: Logan George, Celine Held
Caroline is a tense and another gut wrenching drama based far too deep in to reality. With the rash of parents leaving their children and animals in steaming hot cars, prompting local governments to stand up and enact regulations, “Caroline” touches on such an incident. On a hot Texas day, a single mom has to attend a meeting with her tax agent and is stuck with her kids. She leaves them in charge of six year old Caroline who finds trouble when their car’s A/C breaks down. “Caroline” is brilliantly filmed to create the feeling of distress and heat exhaustion, even though directors Logan George and Celine Held insist their child actors were at no time under immense heat exhaustion. In either case, “Caroline” is an all too reality based drama with top notch performances, great direction, and a tough but empathetic message about the stresses of being a single parent.