Films of 2017: Best Scottish Short Films

Have Heart

Dir. Will Anderson (12 Min)

Life is hard for a working stiff, even when you’re a looping GIF. That’s the premise of the new short from Will Anderson, which follows Duck, whose purpose in life is simple but far from fulfilling: for nine hours a day he flies in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground and smashing into pieces, releasing adorable love hearts into cyberspace, only to reform a moment later and repeat ad infinitum... An existential crisis is looming.

Like Anderson’s award-winning The Making of Longbird – which also concerned a self-aware animation – Have Heart is an uninhibited film with a dark sense of humour. As Duck spirals into despair, his ordered world of routine and repetition begins to disintegrate. Anderson's manipulation of the frame is ingenious: the world in which Duck resides suddenly contracts and expands, or pulls into extreme close-up as he tries to make sense of his existence. Most importantly, the expressive animation makes you care about this neurotic little collection of colours and shapes, a Willy Loman for our digital age. [Jamie Dunn]

Life Cycles

Dir. Ross Hogg (4min)

Just last month, GSFF regular Ross Hogg won the BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Animation for this short but poignant film, which through its personal narrative provides a reflection on routine and disengagement, as well as wider social concerns. Each second in Life Cycles represents one hour in Hogg’s day, including the most banal of moments, offering an intimate yet observational glimpse of the filmmaker’s own life as well as his perception of the world around him. [Sanne Jehoul]

Random White Dudes

Dir. Young Fathers (4m)

As part of a series of short films commissioned by National Galleries Scotland and National Portrait Gallery London, Young Fathers created this searing response to the exhibition Looking Good, addressing male identity and representation. Although a powerful and moving work in itself, with YF's Kayus Bankole shadowboxing against the old establishment, it was perhaps its reception – specifically the backlash of far-right bigotry – that further proved its relevance and validated its call for interrogation. [SJ]

“National Portrait Gallery asked us tae collaborate on a masculinity project called
Male Gaze and we thought, aye, that’s nice eh them.
Then we looked at the faces in the paintings hanging aroond the walls and noticed something.
Can you notice it?
Then we aw laughed cos they’re deed and we’re no.
Hahahahaha”

Rolls and Shutters

Dir. Stina Wirfelt (18min)

Rolls and Shutters sees Glasgow-based artist Stina Wirfelt ponder the photographic archives of the Thistle Foundation and Craigmillar Festival Society. Wirfelt, whose accent sounds midway between Strathclyde and Stockholm, confesses in the film’s zig-zagging voiceover that when she sees an old photograph, she identifies more with the photographer than the subject.

This perspective takes the filmmaker to a huge warehouse charity shop, where she muses on the ordering of the colourful bric-a-brac, which she finds both predictable and random. Then her thoughts fly back through time to her own memories of taking photographs as a young woman, and then on myriad other left-turns, skipping from Scottish landscapes to urban myths to a story about a penguin that we never get to hear in full, and finally to the powerful images that have humanised the Syrian refugee crisis. Wirfelt realises that a photograph, in some cases, can be so vivid that you don’t even have to see it to feel for its subject. [JD]

The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy

Dir. Duncan Campbell (30 min)

Glasgow-based artist Duncan Campbell has reworked archive footage to remarkable effect in previous films Bernadette, It for Others and Make it New, John. In his latest work, set in 1960s rural Ireland, the join between archive and new dramatic scenes is seamless. The film dances around the story of an American film crew shooting an ethnographic documentary, exploring their impact on and responsibility towards a declining community. The richness of the villagers’ language is belied by their extreme poverty: words don’t put food on the table. Speechless ten-year-old Tomás is the focus of the visitors’ pity, but should he be saved at the expense of the wider community? [Matt Lloyd]

For more info on Glasgow Short Film Festival: glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-short-film-festival

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Individual picks (alphabetical order)

Matt Lloyd – Glasgow Short Film Festival director
Flow Country (Jasper Coppes, 10min)
Plastic Man (Yulia Kovanova, 12min)
Random White Dudes (Young Fathers, 4min)
Rolls and Shutters (Stina Wirfelt, 18min)
The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy (Duncan Campbell, 30 min)

Sanne Jehoul – Glasgow Short Film Festival coordinator and programmer
Have Heart (Will Anderson, 12 Min)
Life Cycles (Ross Hogg, 4min)
Record/Record (Robert Duncan, 5min)
Random White Dudes (Young Fathers, 4min)
The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy (Duncan Campbell, 30 min)

Jamie Dunn – The Skinny’s film editor
Have Heart (Will Anderson, 12 Min)
Life Cycles (Ross Hogg, 4min)
Man (Maja Borg, 12min)
Rolls and Shutters (Stina Wirfelt, 18min)
Salt & Sauce (Alia Ghafar, 11min)