Student Film Archives - Directors Notes

A Mother Finds Refuge In Her Own World With Her Blow-up Doll in Chanelle Eidenbenz’s ‘Elephant in the Room’

Chanelle Eidenbenz talks about leaning into cast insights and evolving the script of her drama about a delusional woman’s fraught relationship with her son.

Live Action, Premiere

Jordan Chandler Plunges Us Into a Mother’s Relentless Surreal Nightmare in Her Psychological Wild Ride ‘Brutal’

Jordan Chandler talks about channelling her righteous indignation into her blistering thriller about a mother on a Sisyphean quest to save her missing child.

Live Action, Premiere

Strut Into the Sordid Fetishised Underworld of LA’s Karaoke Bar Scene in Naomi Christie’s ‘Object of Desire’

Naomi Christie speaks about the micro-aggressions and lived experiences which informed the seedy reality of her darkly comic tale of race objectification.

Animation

Naaman Azhari Explores the Gulf Between a Mother’s Expectations and Her Son’s Reality in Rotoscoped Film ‘Threaded’

Naaman Azhari champions the creative flexibility of the bare bones live action footage underpinning the rotoscoped animation of his mother/son drama.

Live Action

A Risk Averse Sceptic Unwittingly Finds Himself Part of a Wellness Cult in Leo Villares’ Comedy Short ‘The Farm’

Leo Villares details the creeping zooms accentuating the dark comedic anxiety of his protagonist as he wrestles against the teachings of a wellness cult guru.

Live Action, Premiere

Nathan Ginter’s Darkly Comic Body Horror ‘The Third Ear’ Sees a Nude Model’s Self-Image Begin to Spiral

Nathan Ginter takes us inside the ways he and his crew maximised the potential and adaptability of their locations when crafting their body horror grad short.

Live Action

Hazel Mckibbin Scrutinises Intricate Gendered Power Dynamics In Her Subtextual Drama ‘She Always Wins’

Hazel McKibbin talks about building an intricate dance of dominance, deference and self-diminishment between lovers and family in her charged drama short.

Live Action

A Desperate Romantic Is Prescribed a Rebound in Julie Magnaudet’s Conceptual Rom-Com ‘Broken Hearts’

Julie Magnaudet breaks down the colourful, warm and subversive visual language of her conceit-driven romantic comedy about a women seeking love life help.

Live Action, Premiere

Christa Haley Captures an Intense Moment of Female Vulnerability in Her NYU Tisch Short ‘Swim Captain’

Christa Haley details the intricacies of shooting the intimate scene in her film revealing the hidden vulnerability a swim leader looked up to by her peers.

Documentary

Miranda Stern’s Cathartic NFTS Documentary ‘milk’ Is an Intimate Exploration of Maternity, Addiction and Loss

Miranda Stern unpacks the cathartic and narrative reasons she opted for an abstract, mixed media scrapbook-style approach for her self-explorative doc short.

Animation

Tsz-wing Ho Reinterprets the Geometric Nature of Hong Kong’s M+ Museum in Abstract Animation ‘& More’

Animator Tsz-wing Ho tells DN how she deconstructed the form of the M+ Museum into her fluid shifting short exploring what underpins our material world.

Animation

Mansi Maheshwari Depicts the Nightmarish Nature of Parental Lies in Feverish Animated Cannes Short ‘Bunnyhood’

Mansi Maheshwari walks DN through how she created the intense and frenetic scrawled animation style of her manic Cannes-selected NFTS grad short.

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