SIFF’s Opening Night Shorts Fest features six striking shorts across mood and method.
While SIFF features so many amazing features (105 altogether this year), one of the great focuses has been the shorts programs, highlighting little dashes of story in bite-sized form. This year, they offer 98, a bounty! First among the various sets is the ShortsFest opening.
As the opening night selection, a wide variety of methods and topics have been chosen. With narrative, documentary, heart-tugging, goofy, strange curios that only shorts can get into, this grouping presents an overview of what the festival might offer among the X other groupings (if not saving the weird for WTF Nightmare Fuel and animation for its own blocks, but the point stands). A solid selection: reading on! [and for shorts lovers, be sure to see Emilie’s posts in Short Film for You here at Cinema Crazed] The shorts are presented in alphabetical order.
Homebodies (USA, 12 minutes, directed by Rachel Olson
Even in a dystopia, one where we must pay to leave our house, we need personal time. Alyssa Limperis, from various Dropout shows and the What We Do in the Shadows TV show, just needs some time to herself. Sending her boyfriend out into the air they can barely afford, her day is interrupted by so many things. Funny and relatable, no matter the trappings, a good, easy start.
Nobody Knows the World (Peru, 18m, directed by Roddy Dextre)
A sad slice of real life to many, as a young man in a world of uncertainty and violence for those of a lower economic status, loses his brother and has to make tough choices. Dextre uses the backdrop of the outskirts of Lima to great visual effect, in a poignant and heartbreaking story, centered on a great child performance and solid non-actors. However, I felt I missed something, a missing element to tie it together.
Oh Whale (USA, 26m, Windslow Crane-Murdoch)
Many of us know the peculiarity of the whale blown up on the Florence, Oregon, beach fifty years ago. A viral video before viral videos. When a dead whale washed ashore, twenty cases of dynamite were used to get rid of it. It went as you’d expect. But you might not know the story around it and how it affected the town, and more pointedly, Paul Linnman, in this wonderful short. Paul was the man who reported on it, becoming the face of the event, and it never let him go. My favorite of the set, I absolutely adored it. I love documentaries that look at subjects unexpected and strange, and that’s what Oh Whale is. Paul Linnman is fantastic to watch, the type who can tell you stories for days, and you’d listen. All told in a zesty way with clever touches and a sense of humor.
Paper Trail (USA, 14m, directed by Don Hertzfeldt)
This one I didn’t see via screener; requested by no response. If that changes, I’ll update.
Scratch (USA, 11m, directed by Aliya Kamaloa)
Wonderfully strange! A lonely woman, Rachel March of The Morning Show and Fallout, wants to audition for her job’s a cappella group but needs help. She gets that from Lamorne Morris, Winston from New Girl, a champion beatboxer. Scratch lovingly follows the trainer-trainee formula of The Karate Kid and the like, to great results. Very funny, leaning on the strangeness of the performances and awkwardness of it all.
Sea Star (Canada, 12m, directed by Tyler Mckenzie Evans)
A happy sort of melancholy floats within this simple but touching story of a Black man taking his first swim lesson. Not much more than that, but it works as is. John Phillips gives a fantastic performance, wearing so much on his face, under the surface. Touching and easy, a great way to exit the program if the online order is the presentation one.
Final Thoughts
Siff opens the shorts run in the festival with a great, wide-ranging set of shorts. Each of these is damned good (I’m making an assumption on Paper Trail here). Wanting to make sure you get a shorts program in this year, but unsure about the focused theme or style? Try out this variety.
SIFF Opening Night ShortsFest is presented as part of the 52nd Seattle International Film Festival, running from May 7th through May 17th, 2026. See https://www.siff.net/festival for more. See all SIFF coverage HERE.