Beautifully designed and cleverly constructed animation short in which a young desert dweller follows the footsteps of 'those who went before' him, but the journey turns out to be dangerous and it will change his life forever. It may look more like a case of style over substance, until the clever twist which turns this into a fascinating meditation on nature which is best seen and not repeated here.
Terraform [The Netherlands - Sil van der Woerd, Jorik Dozy] => 5,5
Quite why Van der Woerd en Dozy decided to turn the plight of Indonesian sulphur miners, who risk their lifes to obtain the minerals, into an application for the next John Lewis Christmas commercial is beyond me. Anyone who has ever seen one of those commercials will recognise the craftsmanship that goes into it and that craftsmanship is visible in this so-called documentary. But if they were seriously trying to support the miners, they should not have chosen this approach. The very extensive (written) plea for help at the very end feels tacked on.
A poor farmer's family has to send their own cow to the slaughter. The son seems displeased with it, and soon after both the boy and the cow are missing. Gashem is desperate to find both of them, but when he spots the lost cow, another local farmer is about to load him into his truck. Shot on location, this is a straightforward story, well played by the actors and with a few nice twists, but it isn't much of a story.
Directed By Nature [The Netherlands - Ton Cox] => 7
Although it certainly is no "Lost In La Mancha", this documentary about the failure to make a documentary definitely has its moments, which makes it worth a look. Tired of seeing nature documentaries which - in his view at least - do not represents animal life as it really is, director Ton Cox comes up with an intriguing idea: he wants the animals themselves to be the camera crew and the directors. Ton tries very hard to find working equipment that allows him to mount the camera on the animal's head, even phoning a local zoo for help. It's an intriguing idea, but things never seem to go as planned. The result is quite an engaging, and at times surprising, but only moderately insightful.
Future Thoughts [The Netherlands - Loek Vugs] => 8,5
An intelligent meditation on the relationship between humans, technology and nature, with an atmospheric score and a great sense of a rhythm that dictates much of the future, according to these thoughts. The animation is pretty straightforward, which allows the viewer to make up his own mind about the meaning of the images. Quite thought-provoking, it's good to see that this film is available online as it requires (and deserves) multiple views.
An original concept, in which director Beny Wagner uses existing clips (mostly from the Internet) to create his own narritive. That approach does mean that at times the film feels disjointed, but some of the images are quite astounding, particulary the opening shot in which we travel through the seemingly endless human body, and the scene in which a diver sinks into, and rises from a bath of iindustrial and human waste. You can almost smell it, but you'll be happy to know this is not available in 4XD.
Catsophrenia [Germany - Sebastian Pfeifer] => 7
There's little I could say about any 45-second film, except that I feel the electronic music, which includes some annoying tweaks, draws too much attention away from the visuals in which a human and a cat seem to merge. Not bad, but probably better without sound. Try if yourself, it can be found online.
Cow-Boy [The Netherlands - Jörgen Scholtens] => 6
A one-joke film, and clearly the cast things it's a good joke. It's all about man who behaves like a cow (or a cow who resembles a human being, whichever you prefer) and the desperate attempts of the family of three to try and raise him as a farmer. Needless to say, the efforts fail miserably. It you like the idea of a young man who wears fake cow ears, you might enjoy this more than I did.
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