Saturday 25 February 2017 – 11:15
81 mins
Certificate: DFF 12A
Venue: Dorking Halls
The Dorking Film Festival asked filmmakers in Surrey, the South-East and the rest of the UK to send us their short films. Here are fourteen of the best from young filmmakers aged eighteen years or younger. We present the off-beat perils of dating in Woking, a teenager with a terminal illness reflecting upon her life and the pain of a married couple facing reality and many other brilliant short films. A prize will be awarded to the best film in this group at the first prize-giving session at 14:15.
Junior Short Films programme
A World Ending Date
Director: Graciela Mae, UK 2016, 4 mins.
Shades of Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry abound in this tale of modern teenage romance in Woking. Juno struggles to meet his new friend Margot but when televisions start falling from the sky it can be hard to concentrate.
Daddy’s Girl
Director: Ellie MacMillan, UK 2016, 4 mins.
Two kidnappers get more than they bargained for when they hold a young woman for ransom in this short action thriller. Who’s the daddy!
Ethereal
Director: Sean Ramsden, UK 2016, 7 mins.
When a flood strikes suburbia a bickering couple take refuge upstairs. Sean Ramsden, who’s film Nebula screened at the 1st Dorking Film Festival in 2015, returns with another lo-fi fable that will take your breath away.
Flat Mates
Director: Eve Rowles, UK 2016, 7 mins.
Friends at university may not always be friends for life. When Felix returns from a gap year in Asia he turns his former best friend’s life upside down in this comedy about responsibility and excess.
Forget Me Not
Director: Max Baker, UK 2016, 5 mins.
Everybody wishes they could change some of their actions at some point. A present day George Bailey upsets a friend and discovers his own school version of its A Wonderful Life.
Grief
Director: Yasmin Allen, UK 2016, 3 mins.
Children at a wake react in different ways to the death of their friend. A boy overhears all of them.
Run Rabbit Run
Director: Eleanor Smith, UK 2016, 5 mins.
Jimmy Blue Eyes and his associates are feeling the heat. There’s a new gang in town and their criminal activities are under threat, but all is not as it seems in this homage to the classic Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s and 1940s.
Scribble
Director: James King, UK 2016, 3 mins.
Teenagers playing hide and seek at a party make a macabre discovery. One of their number has a scribble over her face on a photo on her phone. Sharing might be caring but here it is scaring!
Sister
Director: Frankie Jamieson, UK 2016, 7 mins.
When your older sister has an exciting life what’s a 13-year old school boy supposed to do? Trying to play football and hoping it will all go away isn’t always enough in this well observed family drama.
Solus
Director: David Knight, UK 2016, 5mins.
A boy and girl endure parallel but separate lives through days that keep repeating themselves. Loneliness is told in two different directions in this cyclical drama.
Something Blue
Director: Joseph Johnson, UK 2016, 7 mins.
A married couple conduct an increasingly fraught conversation over breakfast. History, love and melancholia are laid bare in a relentless fashion in this self-assured first film from Hindhead resident Joseph Johnson.
The Taking
Director: Nikita Sahota, UK 2016. 4 mins.
A group of teenagers are voluntarily abducted by a mysterious stranger in a field. It was always meant to happen. They were always meant to be taken…but why? One of their number resists but answers don’t come easy.
Today
Director: Mia Asante, UK 2016, 6 mins.
A teenager with a terminal illness reflects upon her life and its meaning. Bromey’s Mia Asante uses stop-motion techniques to focus on the value and appreciation of life.
Vox
Director: Daisy Nicholson, UK 2016, 4 mins.
In a silent future humans only communicate by implants. A scientist runs tests on a group of subjects. Something goes wrong. Eerie science-fiction drama.
Image from A World Ending Date
