Author Archives: Emilie Black

Yesterday is Tomorrow (2017) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]

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A mourning woman must confront her past and her dreams as they begin blurring and causing her much pain.

Written and directed by James C. Shahanshah, this short takes on issues of grieving, regret, sadness, depression, and other mental issues. It tackles them fairly upfront and manages to make a film that is touching and emotional while also not over-doing any of it. The subtlety of the film and how it proceeds with the emotions at hand works great for this type of situation and message. The film does not skirt any part of the issues at hand, but it also does not go for too bluntly which is something that takes a mastering of storytelling and directing clearly shown here from James C. Shahanshah. He gives his leading lady the spotlight and doesn’t force the gaze upon her but more like lets it rest upon her emotions. The film layers the lead’s emotions to create something that becomes heavier and heavier as the runtime moves forward.

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Assumption (2017) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]

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A man wakes up trapped in a cargo elevator, as time goes by, his spends his time speaking with the disembodied voice from the security room and begins to lose his mind.

Written and directed by Anthony Leone, Assumption is a one location film that does make the most of its location and that trapped feeling that happens when one is stuck in an elevator for an extended period of time.  The film explores themes of guilt and purgatory in direct and indirect ways while also showing the true colors of its only onscreen character.  However, this could have been done in less time as here the film feels overly long and repetitive after a while.  The ideas and the story are good, but the way it’s executed feels like something is either missing or it could have been trimmed by a lot.

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Nocturnally Yours (2017) [Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2017]

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After his untimely death on the night of his engagement, a man haunts his love until he finds a way to visit her in the “flesh”.

Nocturnally Yours is the sixth title on writer/director David Ferino’s IMDB resume.  Here he creates a darkly funny story of love that transcends death, of a man who is not ready to move on and a woman who is not ready to let go finding a way to reconnect that turns absolutely hilarious.  The story is wrong on quite a few levels, yet is so entertaining.  The film takes this crazy idea, runs with it, and succeeds in making something that should make people with a dark or twisted sense of humor laugh out loud.  The story is well told, the humor is on point, and the way it’s all delivered makes for a fun few minutes.

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Shot (2017)

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A couple on the verge of divorce goes to lunch, on their way out, a random bullet hits the husband and wounds him badly. As he attempts to survive and re-adapt, the teen who shot him by accident tries the same.

Written by Anneke Campbell and Will Lamborn from a story by director Jeremy Kagan, Shot is a story that shows the danger of having guns on the streets and aims to encourage discussion about gun access and gun violence. The film here shows how an accidental gunshot can drastically change 3 lives in just a split second. This is done by telling both the story of the victim and his wife and the story of the teen who shot the gun. The film tackles both at the same in time in two different styles, part of the film showing their stories at the same time, with a split screen, and part of the film going back and forth between the two stories. This creates an interesting dynamic and causes a bit of an emotional overload at times which helps the film here as it shows the chaos caused by the situation.

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Downrange (2017) [Toronto International Film Festival 2017]

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A group of students sharing a car to various destinations has a tire blow-out that leaves them stranded.  Soon they discover that this was not an accident and they are now in grave danger.

Written by Joey O’Bryan and Ryûhei Kitamura with the latter also directing, Downrange is a tense, one location thriller that grabs the viewer early on and doesn’t let go until the end credits roll.  For fans of Kitamura, this is a return to sources, to his earlier style of having a story set in one location and making it a tense experience for all involved.  This, here, is very successful and works like a charm in the desolate location on a road in the middle of nowhere.  This setting works really well here and the collection of characters and how they came to be together adds to the tension and mystery.  The film uses the fact that there are many unknowns to work in its favor.  The situation is tense enough on its own but the way the characters interact and are portrayed make it work even better.

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Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle (2017) [Toronto International Film Festival 2017]

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Julita’s lifelong dream was to have lots of kids, a monkey, and a castle. She achieved all of these. Now, her son, actor Gustavo Salmerón has made a documentary on her life showing how she got to getting her dream realized, how the castle became cluttered with all kinds of mementos and things, and how things changed once she had to move out of the castle.

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