Among thousands of students who persevered to finish their degrees during the Ontario college strike this year, the Humber College Bachelor of Film and Media Production class of 2018 had many reasons to celebrate their hard work and achievements. The night’s program showed an array of talent along with diversity of technique, and a room full of young filmmakers eager to continue to create and collaborate.
Short films in the program spread across a range of emotions and genres. Many, such as Megan Gaspar’s animation about a family vacation, Ohana, or Isaac Alfie’s exploration of growing up with Multiple Sclerosis in Tiny House, delved into personal themes and social issues while others, such as Samantha Chalmer’s The Coggler, focused on love and mortality in dystopian, sci fi worlds. A few documentaries were splattered among the fiction pieces, and the majority of films looked at variations of the ever resilient and important themes of growing up, moving on, and finding your place in the world.
For me, there were two pieces which particularly stood out in the program:
Sweet Spot, directed by Kaitlin Kealey, is an intimate, first-person documentary which explores the filmmaker’s own struggles with long distance love. Kealey’s first-person footage and narration is captivating and unique and brings a personal touch to examining long distance relationships, and more generally relationships and love at a transitional, pre-grad period of one’s life.
More lighthearted in tone but no less heartfelt, Un Pièce, directed by Kennedy Salloum, is an adorable, raucous short that follows two young siblings who, inspired by the French New Wave, endeavour to write, create, and perform an absurd, heavily stylized, play for their single mother in French -- a language neither of them understand. The production design is quite charming and a little Wes Anderson-esque (meets French New Wave of course) and both child actors give convincing and comedic performances.
Congratulations to Humber’s graduating class -- we hope to see more of your work very soon.
-Katie
Short films in the program spread across a range of emotions and genres. Many, such as Megan Gaspar’s animation about a family vacation, Ohana, or Isaac Alfie’s exploration of growing up with Multiple Sclerosis in Tiny House, delved into personal themes and social issues while others, such as Samantha Chalmer’s The Coggler, focused on love and mortality in dystopian, sci fi worlds. A few documentaries were splattered among the fiction pieces, and the majority of films looked at variations of the ever resilient and important themes of growing up, moving on, and finding your place in the world.
For me, there were two pieces which particularly stood out in the program:
Sweet Spot, directed by Kaitlin Kealey, is an intimate, first-person documentary which explores the filmmaker’s own struggles with long distance love. Kealey’s first-person footage and narration is captivating and unique and brings a personal touch to examining long distance relationships, and more generally relationships and love at a transitional, pre-grad period of one’s life.
More lighthearted in tone but no less heartfelt, Un Pièce, directed by Kennedy Salloum, is an adorable, raucous short that follows two young siblings who, inspired by the French New Wave, endeavour to write, create, and perform an absurd, heavily stylized, play for their single mother in French -- a language neither of them understand. The production design is quite charming and a little Wes Anderson-esque (meets French New Wave of course) and both child actors give convincing and comedic performances.
Congratulations to Humber’s graduating class -- we hope to see more of your work very soon.
-Katie
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