Holding Moses (2022) | Directed by Rivkah Beth Medow

 1/5

Rivkah Beth Medow’s Holding Moses is a short documentary about the mother of a disabled child, but it is unfortunately another film that prioritizes the experiences of a parent or caregiver rather than the experiences of the disabled child themselves. The film spends too much of its time focusing on what the parent has lost in caring for their child, too much time on the parent learning to love their child, too much time on what the parent has had to overcome… so that by the end of the film it paints them as a saintly model of parenthood for all to follow. This portrait of disability also sanitizes the child’s disability so that he becomes a caricature of the sweet, disabled, angelic child. It’s an insensitive, self-serving short documentary.

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Ice Merchants (2022) | Directed by João Gonzalez

 4.5/5

João Gonzalez’s Ice Merchants is a lovely work of short animation, filled with intricate illustrations and beautiful designs. The use of repetition throughout the film is so effective as it sets up for the film’s poignant conclusion. While grief is at the core of this short, it exists in the background as an ever-present emotion, revealing itself in small moments that build slowly to the film’s emotional finale. This is a gorgeous little film that takes you by surprise, that you can’t help but love the more you consider it – from the simple way movement is captured to the film’s heart and soul.

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Black Slide (2021) | Directed by Uri Lotan

 3/5

Uri Lotan’s Black Slide is a beautiful and richly animated short film about a child coping with the death of a parent, but the jumps between past and present get a bit too jumbled within such a compressed timeframe. The film’s central theme about toughening up to face your fears is a disappointment in such a gorgeously crafted film – especially since it feels so psychologically inaccurate to what this child actually needs in the midst of his loss. However, the final moments are truly beautiful and lovely, a stunning visualization of moving through grief.

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My Year of Dicks (2022) | Directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir

 4/5

Sara Gunnarsdóttir’s My Year of Dicks is a very funny, painfully honest coming-of-age short about a teenage girl looking to lose her virginity. The variation in animation styles used throughout the short is absolutely wonderful and helps differentiate each chapter and the different boys she dates over the course of the titular year, with each style perfectly representing the relationship and her own inner state of being. It’s charming, honest, and oh-so-true true to the experiences of growing up (especially in the ’90s) and of what it is to explore your sexuality for the first time.

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Shut Up and Paint (2022) | Directed by Titus Kaphar and Alex Mallis

 4.3/5

Titus Kaphar and Alex Mallis’s Shut Up and Paint is a compelling short doc about the artist Titus Kaphar and the crossroads he finds himself at as his work is selling for exorbitant sums of money but isn’t being seen by Black audiences and isn’t being sold to Black homes or Black institutions. This is an insightful rumination on just how white the traditional art market truly is, and how hard it is for Black artists to work within the art world and reach Black audiences. There are also essential conversations throughout about the ways art institutions attempt to muzzle activist-artists. In addition to the film’s piercing and thoughtful interviews, it’s also comprised of lovely breaks for poetry and a behind-the-scenes look at Kaphar’s first film project – a work designed to help his art reach more viewers. This is a wonderful short documentary.

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The Garbage Man (2022) | Directed by Laura Gonçalves

 2.5/5

Laura Gonçalves’s The Garbage Man is a sweet story about an eccentric, generous, and warm man, told through a series of reflections from his family. The animation is pleasant and flows nicely from one anecdote to the next. However, the narrative is a bit formless. The anecdotes meander and the film doesn’t really give us much in the way of a good entry point or endpoint. It’s a sweet film filled with loving stories, but there just isn’t much for us, as the audience, to hold onto.

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Stranger at the Gate (2022) | Directed by Joshua Seftel

 4/5

Joshua Seftel’s Stranger at the Gate is an incredibly compelling short documentary about one man’s journey from hate to love. Seftel wisely focuses on the community that accepted this would-be domestic terrorist and contrasts their open acceptance with his wife’s tactic of hoping that his anger and rage would simply get better on their own. This is a film that rests on the strengths of its strong interviews and wise editing choices. There may be some questionable b-roll footage throughout, but when the rest of the film is so strong, that’s a minor complaint.

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The Flying Sailor (2022) | Directed by Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

 3.5/5

Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby’s The Flying Sailor is an incredibly beautiful short film with stunning animation. The mix of styles and techniques is mind-boggling – especially seeing how seamlessly these seemingly disparate techniques are blended together. While there isn’t much below the surface of this short, it is a lovely way to explore what happens when your life flashes before your eyes. It’s charming, light, and clever.

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It’s Nice in Here (2022) | Directed by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers

 3/5

Content Warning: This film contains depictions of police violence toward the Black community.

Robert-Jonathan Koeyers’s It’s Nice in Here is a gorgeously animated short film that makes an attempt at nuance but isn’t quite as effective as could have been. The first half of the film is a haunting and poignant reflection on loss, and the second half of the film makes an admirable attempt to capture the tragedy of police shootings and just how easy it is for officers who think they’re “good cops” to murder Black youth because of the racism that is baked into policing. However, to be truly effective, the film needed to show more of the socialization that embeds racism into policing and trains officers to murder members of the Black community. The most effective sequence in the film is the scene of the shooting, the way the animation shifts and changes as the narrative shifts between the different witnesses’ perspectives. The film’s switch to live-action at the end doesn’t quite work, and the political pundits who politicize the shooting is a little too on the nose. It’s an interesting attempt to show more nuance in a police murder, but it doesn’t fully work the way the filmmaker is intending it to.

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The Debutante (2022) | Directed by Elizabeth Hobbs

 5/5

Elizabeth Hobbs’s The Debutante is an outstanding, incredibly disturbing, but very funny animated short film about breaking free from familial and societal expectations. The animation style is truly wonderful – lines and watercolors blend into one another across a variety of background materials. The narrator gives a lovely performance, and the rest of the voiceover work is stellar. It’s a grim short, but it’s utterly delightful and charming.