I I can’t say these are the greatest shorts of all time: there are thousands and thousands of shorts and you should watch them all. I saw most of them when I was making short films, going to film festivals and watching a lot of them. These are the films that marked me. These are films that I thought I would like to share with the world, that more people should see them. In no particular order, here they are.

The Cat with the Hands (2001)

Grimm’s fairy tale director Rob Morgan about a horrible mutant cat-human hybrid being.

It sounds like a story that has been around for hundreds of years and yet the director was actually inspired by a dream his sister had. I love that it’s a newly invented fairy tale. It’s three and a half minutes long and so perfectly told: it’s something you always look for in shorts, to find a full story, and so many shorts fail to do that. It’s an incredibly nightmarish film; weird and fascinating in its fusion of animation and live-action to create an eerie fairy-tale world – and the finale’s buildup and crazy editing is superb. It’s over 20 years old now, but the production value is amazing, it feels like stepping into a big budget fantasy movie.

She wanted to be burned (2007)

A banquet manager Ruth Paxtonthe first short film by, about a woman experiencing a mental health crisis whose origin is unclear.

It’s a tumultuous ride through a young woman’s shame. I remember feeling that Ruth Paxton captured an awful feeling and put it on screen and I was so in awe of it. I like when I see a filmmaker who doesn’t censor himself and doesn’t think too much. It is not a direct story, there is an experimental aspect; it’s implied, so you can bring your own luggage to the film. We don’t know exactly what the root of this young woman’s shame is, but she seems to be trying to get away from herself, to get rid of something. I found it really powerful.

Afternoon Meshes (1943)

surreal fable of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammidabout a young woman haunted by a mysterious mirror-faced figure.

Cinema is the art form that most resembles our dreams or our nightmares, and I think Afternoon stitches is closest to that. The fact that it is silent makes it particularly dreamlike. Our minds attempt to create meaning and story from the somewhat dislocated events unfolding on screen – I find this fascinating in terms of how our brain searches for the narrative. In the end, it was the repetition, those loops of footage, that really stuck with me: we see a woman chasing a masked figure up a hill, and the editing makes it look like she’s going back to the beginning again and even. I don’t know if I created this idea in my head, or if that’s actually what’s going on – it feels like a dream we’re trying to piece together. I’m very sensitive to surrealism, and it’s a film that I return to again and again to draw on this style of cinema and this technique.

Camrex (2015)

Documentary by director Mark Chapman about Camrex House, a since closed hostel for homeless men in Sunderland.

The hybrid nature of this movie meant that when I first watched it, I wasn’t quite sure if I was watching a documentary or a fiction. The shooting style looks like fiction; scenes set up with these men in different scenarios, doing push-ups, throwing furniture out the windows. But it’s clear that these aren’t actors – they’re real people on screen. I find this technique so fascinating; this blurred line between fact and fiction. And it’s done here in such a cinematic way. It’s also not a world we often see on screen: we all know there are people who live in homeless shelters like this, but I don’t think I have any already. seen one. As a study of masculinity, I also found it really fascinating and actually quite heartbreaking.

Manoman (2015)

Animation by Simon Cartwright about a man in Primal Scream Therapy who releases his inner identity.

It’s pretty crazy, that one. Like Camrex, it’s a film about masculinity, which must clearly intrigue me! It’s a disturbing and very strange look at the pressures, expectations and neuroses of being a man – all hilariously expressed and quite bonkers. It’s one of those movies that you like to show people just to see how they react, especially at the wonderfully insane climax. It’s definitely in the same space as She Wanted to Be Burnt: in that it’s about a creative filmmaker and unbridled in his expression. I really respect that and I think that’s one of the great things about short films – you don’t have the same pressures as a feature film. I love seeing filmmakers burst with imagination on the screen like that.

Dead. Fabric. Love (2017)

Documentary by Natasha Austin-Green interview a woman about her interest in necrophilia.

I first saw this one on The Final Girls’ We Are the Weirdos short film tour, and found it so mesmerizing and atmospheric. Necrophilia feels like it doesn’t really exist in the real world – it’s more like something you read about or watch in horror movies – but it’s a meditation on necrophilia delivered without judgment, which becomes an opportunity to understand something beyond our comfort zone. We are drawn into it little by little: the woman’s voice-over (by an actor) explains her own discomfort with these strange desires – it all just fascinated me, to be honest. We never see the person speak – the voiceover is accompanied by very visceral imagery making it feel like we’re digging under and into the flesh. I guess some people might find that a bit rude. But the film has the power to allow us to see from the point of view of others; most of us would be horrified by the idea of ​​necrophilia – disgusted, really – but this film seeks to humanize it and does so very successfully. It’s a testament to how cinema allows us to empathize.

It’s the Best (2015)

short drama of director Tamyka Smith about a woman getting ready to go out on a date.

I saw it years ago at a film festival and have never forgotten it. There is no dialogue. We collect certain information via text message when we watch a woman getting ready for a date. We never fully see her face: in very close-up, she puts on make-up, erases every millimeter of her body, removes hair, perfects herself. Then she arrives at a house, where this guy in jogging bottoms, who obviously hasn’t made any effort, opens the door. It then cuts her to leave the next morning – we don’t know what went into that, but we do know the effort she put in, the expectations she had for this date- you, have clearly not been satisfied. She seems so used. It’s a short film that takes a very small, seemingly simple idea and expresses it so clearly; the extremes and the effort that women go to to present themselves, and then that disappointment, that shame, maybe even that embarrassment, of feeling used, of not being respected in return – that sums it up very powerfully.

Ekki Mukk (2012)

Directed by Nick Abrahams as part of a series to accompany the music of Sigur Rós, with Aidan Gillen and a snail.

I remember being so moved when I first saw this. Sigur Rós’ music is very emotional. I had tears streaming down my face at the end – I don’t think many shorts can tap into that level of emotion in just 10 minutes. There is something so simple, surreal and fantastic in the story itself: a man lost in the forest and a snail help him out – or not – from the darkness. I’m a sucker for all things animal; the idea of ​​empathy between humans and animals. It might be quite different from the other movies here, more sentimental – but it’s set in a fantastic space that really appeals to me. I can see that I have a fascination with the darker aspects of life, death and decay, and this film has an incredible sped up sequence of a fox’s body decaying, which makes you think about what we are, what nature is and how we are all belong to the same thing.

Loneliness (2014)

short film by Prevenge director Alice Loweabout an isolated nun haunted by nameless fears.

It is a film without dialogue, with Alice Lowe in the role of a nun in the middle ages, living alone in the middle of nowhere. There is an incredibly strange atmosphere there: we see her exploring the idea of ​​isolation, living alone in a ruin and trying to transcode the messages of nature. For example, she finds a dead bird and seems to interpret that as having a deeper meaning. Lowe captures a real sense of isolation and a lack of rules about what happens in the world, leaving his character ungrounded, desperately searching for meaning in a world that may have none.

Unravel (2012)

Documentary about women working in a recycling factory in India, which transforms western clothes into yarn for blankets.

I must admit that I worked on this film as an editor but I love it and I believe in its feeling, and the director Meghna Gupta is incredible. One might expect filming in garment factories to be depressing, but the natural warmth and personalities of the interviewees provide a refreshing lightness. While the film is shot in the east, in many ways it mirrors our waste in the west, the capitalist clothing market that pushes us to buy more and more things that we end up throwing away. But what I really like is the central character Reshma: she doesn’t have much but she has a lot of joy. The clothes she handles travel thousands of miles around the world to this sleepy little place, Panipat, while Reshma herself dreams of traveling but has never left the city – the contrast is poignant. She is one of those characters you could spend hours with.

Spider (2007)

Black comedy thriller directed by Nash Edgerton about a man whose prank on his girlfriend goes painfully and horribly wrong.

Like The Cat With Hands, it’s a very well-rounded story that works perfectly for the form of the short. It’s also the one I show people a lot – with a trigger warning – without giving away the ending, which is so brilliant and shocking. The main character is silly and yet well-meaning; you kinda like it, but all along you’ve been sitting there dreading what’s going to happen. The fact that the director has a background as a stuntman makes perfect sense: it’s such a well-crafted joke… I don’t want to call it a joke, but it is. We don’t get as many shorts that achieve this narrative perfection, but this one does. It’s not something to meditate on or make you a better person, it’s just pure entertainment.