Today marks the halfway point of the festival, but there’s still so much left to see! In the back half of the screening schedule, we’re in for a ton of excellent selections, including those from today’s blocks. With Kids and Family, International films, Period Pieces, Crime Dramas and Music Videos, there should be a ton to choose from for everyone. For those looking to attend the rest of the festival, there’s still time to get tickets for future days. And in addition, there’s plenty of opportunity to see all the films from home, as all the films will also be streaming on BitPix. Be sure to check out today’s highlights, as well as an interview with Masha Egieva, director of Saint Vassily!
KIDS AND FAMILY
Magic Candies – A wonderfully animated film, this Daisuke Nishio projects follows young Dong-Dong as he explores the world by himself, just as he prefers. It isn’t until he finds some magical sweets that his entire perspective changes, as each one of the treats has a specific pattern and correlates to an object in his world that usually can’t communicate with him, but thanks to the candy, now can. From his couch to his dog, Dong-Dong gets to see the world in a new way, and one that is gorgeous for any viewer who gets to experience it with him.
INTERNATIONAL
Nothing But Shadows – A film by Kathy Mitrani, this film is a somber but touching story that sees Marisol (Tessi Herrasti), a spiritual woman, see something on the news that frightens her. The news report of finding human remains at a construction site, an event that coincides with the anniversary of her husband’s passing, is enough to break Marisol out of her grief and back into her spiritual work after some time away.
PERIOD PIECE
The Seed Of Truth – Directed and written by W.Y. Geng, this short is a rough one, as it tells a tale based on a true story, that story being of a Soviet scientist in the early 1950’s being pressured to sign a confession of treason for correctly calling out the pseudo-science of the Soviet regime. It’s a challenging film to watch, but one that rings true in history, as over 3,000 scientists met a similar fate for trying to tell the truth about science while living under Stalin. Starring both Virginia Shannon and Charlotte Raith in different time periods as Elena Vavilov, it’s a touching recounting of a dark time in history.
CRIME DRAMA
Saint Vassily – Masha Egieva’s film about a Russian priest and his conflict with a KGB agent who is attempting to locate his fellow religious figure, it stars Michael Shaeffer and Billy Gunnion as two people on opposing sides; one, an agent of the regime looking to root out those who don’t stick to the Russian doctrine, and a man of faith looking to help guide his lost friend back into the light of the Lord.
MUSIC VIDEOS
LOR – Kingdom Falling – This beautiful music video by LOR is a great accompaniment to an equally great song. With gorgeous synths and haunting autotuned vocals, the song is given an bigger boost from the video, directed by Taylor Harrison Gittin and follows a little robot marionette as it makes its way through the much bigger world around it. A terrific visual for a song that will sure to get people moving.
That concludes our highlights for day five! A big congrats to all of the filmmakers who were screened today, and throughout the festival. Keep reading as well to check out an interview with Saint Vassily’s Masha Egieva, who was gracious to take the time out to speak with us.
What inspired you to start making films?
I come from a background in visual arts, and was considering becoming a fine artist. That said, for me art is about urgency; it’s about a conversation with the audience; it’s about processing the reality around us through a creative matrix. Fine art no longer felt like the right medium for the kind of communication that I wanted to have with the audience. As I searched for an art form that is at once visual and narrative, film was a natural choice for me.
What were the challenges in making this project?
My grief in the wake of my country’s criminal invasion of Ukraine was all-consuming, and Saint Vassily is a direct result of that. When I started working on the script, I decided to avoid setting it in modern-day Russia; being too close to today’s reality prevented me from seeing things clearly. This is how the idea to set the film in the early 1980s USSR emerged, and one of the creative challenges was to communicate about today’s wartime reality without speaking about it directly.
Saint Vassily tells the thriller-esque tale of a self-righteous theological student who, just as he’s about to become a priest, is approached by a secret service agent who threatens to cancel his ordination unless he denounces his roommate. It’s a film about the State’s oppressive, authoritarian ways of taming our protagonist; it’s about his change under that pressure; it’s about his compromise and the lies he tells himself to survive. It was a long development process to make sure that Saint Vassily communicates clearly the paranoid, claustrophobic reality that directly brought about Putin’s Russia, where moral compromise is still pervasive.
Another challenge was that, to create this film, with its anti-Putinist sensibility, we worked remotely with multiple people who are currently in Russia or still have ties to it. The biggest challenge was to come up with ways to collaborate with those filmmakers while not putting them in danger. Many of them asked not to be included in the credits. We are indebted to them for their help, and can only hope that one day you will know their names.
How does it feel to be able to screen the film at HollyShorts?
Screening Saint Vassily at HollyShorts is an absolute dream come true. It’s hard to believe that exactly a year ago we were preparing for the shoot, and now we are about to screen at one of the largest, most prestigious short film festivals, and in the same category as the legendary Takashi Miike.
What’s on the horizon for you?
Of course, as a director, I cannot wait to direct my first feature. For the moment, together with the development producer of Saint Vassily, screenwriter Raphaël Duhamel, I am co-writing another short film, in development with Midpoint Institute. It’s an erotic drama revolving around a middle-aged couple, and we intend to shoot it in early 2025. I’m also developing three feature films, a psychological thriller co-written with Raphaël and two other projects which I develop on my own. We are extremely happy to continue our collaboration with executive producer Byron McNally and his development house Script Compass, where we are currently developing one of the features.
Once again, thanks to everyone who has been able to participate in this year’s festival! We’ll be back tomorrow with another incredible slate of short films!
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