SXSW is known for many things. Big screenings, traffic, an inordinate amount of taco and bbq lovers inhabiting the same space. Though we all know the stereotypes, we tend to ignore what truly makes the festival. In this case, the well curated shorts program inhabiting the elite SX film space. Find your tacos and free drinks, but do it while waiting for these shorts to make their premieres.
Midnight Shorts
Deep Tissue
With the serial killer craze in full effect, we all know there’s an inordinate amount of folks lusting after blood thirsty creeps. That said, Deep Tissue touches on a cannibalistic approach to the hype. Showcasing a bangin’ babe looking for a well curated “deep tissue” massage, her hired help takes a few liberties (with her implied consent), leaving the viewer simultaneously turned on and terrified. The perfect Midnight Short.
The Do It Up Date
Part of the magic of midnight shorts is the thin line between gross out humor and horror. The Do It Up Date delivers on the former, focusing on what would be an almost honest first date. Rocks in the underpants to establish a cool walk. Genitals drawn in on the forehead to ensure intentions and foresight are well known. A hipster chic restaurant that only serves the finest “never been used” toilet paper on a platter (kisses fingers like a cheesy chef).
It’s Not Custard
Being a teenager is pure trash. Either your popular and likely miserable due to an impeding loneliness. Or, you’re unpopular and miserable due to an impeding loneliness. None of it is easy. Hormones make everything complicated and strange. For one teenage girl, nothing is harder than getting through the day with her unending acne. Between being bullied at home by her older, seemingly perfect sister, and at school by other trash teens, she wishes for clear skin and confidence. Seemingly a miracle occurs, and while she struts around with clearer skin than the goddamn invisible man, her secret shame builds up in an unexpected manner, leading her to more stress than before, and unexpected revenge.
Narrative Shorts
Lavender
Things are always better when it’s not yours. It’s a definite notion we all run into at one point or another in our lives. For this throuple, you can have your cake and eat it too. That is, until the married couple decides to add a baby to the mix. An honest look at a relationship between a married couple and their boyfriend, things go from sweet and sensual to complicated in just a moment. Love doesn’t always conquer when it comes to being the outsider in an intimate relationship.
Little Grey Bubbles
Challenging the outdated notion that straight men and women can’t be just friends, Little Grey Bubbles showcases the intimate friendship a man and a woman take part in through just online correspondence. After her best friend passes away suddenly, a woman attends his funeral to meet his family, putting faces and places to the intimate life he’s shared with her. Dealing with multiple inquires, she does her best to be there one last time for the person she cares for. After feeling discomfort and upset, she is inadvertently validated by his grieving wife, adding the perfect end to their perfectly platonic friendship.
Catch all the SX shorts online soon.
