24/05/2024 - CANNES 2024: Small-scale, earth-shattering events are explored in the short films set to be shown to audiences in the final days of Cannes

The short-film medium often eschews the melodramatic. Over a scant few minutes, a short focuses on the smaller moments in life, times which might seem trivial or banal when taken in isolation. But it’s these moments which have seismic effects on these films’ protagonists, tiny actions which ripple throughout time and history, affecting the fates of individuals but also humanity as a whole.

The European short films which are vying for the Palme d’Or within Cannes’ Official Competition all unfold at intimate and personal moments in time. But these small slices of life are all played out against the backdrop of historically important events – whether war, mass emigration or gentrification – which shake countries and societies to their core.

Returning to the Cannes competition after 2021’s Pa Vend is Kosovo-born filmmaker Samir Karahoda with On the Way, which, in exploring ideas of nationalism and emigration, explores similar themes as his previous work. As a filmmaker takes his son to the airport to pick somebody up, a number of diversions en route serve as a general absurdist reflection on modern reality. As our protagonist is lauded for drawing attention to the country, he is also chastised for not looking for a ‘real job’ – the lack of which causes many swathes of people to travel to other places in search of new and prosperous lives. As expected, it’s a dryly funny movie, but there are sharp stabs of satire and genuine anger here too.

Less gentle is Nebojša Slijepčević’s The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent. Based on a true story set during the war in the 1990s, the film follows passengers on a train travelling from Serbia to Montenegro. When paramilitary forces board the train at a small station to check IDs, most acquiesce to their demands. But there is one who demands some human decency. A claustrophobic and tense affair, the film is an often uncomfortable exploration of a historical tragedy and the line between the desire to do what is right and to be left alone

Lithuanian filmmaker Eglė Razumaitė offers up an elliptical tale in the form of Ootid, in which a group of girls at a summer camp all have different ideas about why one of them left. This follows in the footsteps of fellow Lithuanian filmmakers such as Vytautus Katkus and Laurynas Bareisa – whose shorts have also bowed in A-List festivals – who blend realism with a taste of the otherworldly.

There’s also a sense of this in Sanki Yoxsan (Azerbaijan/France) by Azer Guliev, in which young couple Samir and Leyla decide to run away from their families. But the next day, Samir is gone. Guliev presents an emotional landscape of loss and longing in a languidly beautiful but also achingly human movie.

Gentrification is explored in Daniel Soares’ Bad for a Moment, a clever and intelligent examination of an architect whose life starts to spiral after a team-building event goes wrong. Full of striking imagery, the film exists in a world where middle class society gets the space it wants, but at a cost of increasing alienation.

Animation makes an appearance by way of Les belles cicatrices (France), Raphaël Jouzeau’s dissection of the aftermath of a relationship. This is a sharp and emotional piece of work, with animation that flits between warmth and nightmare as the memories of the past haunt the present.

There’s more animation in the brilliant Volcelest by French animator Éric Briche, in which a stoat must survive the harsh winter by venturing to new and dangerous places. Darkly beautiful, this is an impressive and consistently compelling exploration of the reality of nature (much more Watership Down than Disney).

The full list of films in the section:

Short Film Competition

Volcelest - Éric Briche (France)
Ootid - Razumaitė Eglė (Lithuania)
Sanki Yoxsan - Azer Guliev (Azerbaijan/France)
Les belles cicatrices - Raphaël Jouzeau (France)
On the Way - Samir Karahoda (Kosovo)
Across the Waters - Viv Li (China)
Perfectly a Strangeness - Alison McAlpine (Canada)
Tea - Blake Rice (USA)
Yellow - André Hayato Saito (Brazil)
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent - Nebojša Slijepčević (Croatia/France/Bulgaria)
Bad for a Moment - Daniel Soares (Portugal)