There’s Only One Sun (2007)
#ShortFilmFriday is one of our favorite properties that we started on our old Tumblr last year (which doesn’t exist now by the way). As the name suggests, we used to select and put up one interesting short film from Asia and Middle East every Friday. We will revive the column pretty soon, but for now, we have put together all the films from the column here:
Brandon Li’s Nomads of Mongolia
Here’s a short documentary by traveler, shooter and editor Brandon Li. Brandon has been shooting some absolutely fascinating places and cultures since the last few years. Previously, he has worked with MTV’s docu-reality series True Life.
Nomads of Mongolia stunningly captures the enthralling life in Western Mongolia where “training eagles to hunt, herding yaks and racing camels are just a few of the daily activities of the nomadic Kazakh people.” Brandon spent a few weeks here and the result is this absolutely magnificent documentary that you can watch below.
You can see Brandon’s other work here and here. And you can read a lovely interview with him here.
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Dan Sachar’s When it Will be Silent
This is a 7-minute long film ‘When it Will be Silent’ from Israel. It is created by Dan Sachar who is a film director, cinematographer and a VFX artist. The two films Dan created while still in film school, including When it Will be Silent and Overture, deal with post apocalypse scenarios. Both the films have received great critical appreciation.
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Wong Kar Wai’s There’s Only One Sun
Here’s a short film created by the Hong Kong based contemporary filmmaker Wong Kar Wai who is well-known for his feature films like In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild, among others. This visually stunning and intriguing sci-fi short was made in 2007 as an advertisement for Philips’Aurea Ambilight Televisions.
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Lu Yang’s Uterus Man
Uterus Man is an animated film by contemporary Chinese artist Lu Yang. This film is a highly unusual and powerful stance on gender stereotypes. The Creators Project did an interesting interview with Lu Yang about this project. You can read it here. Here’s an interview of Lu Yang in NYT. This is Lu Yang’s website and this is her Vimeo page.
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Abbas Kiarostami’s The Bread and Alley
This is the first ever film made by the legendary Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami (who passed away last year unfortunately). This was made in 1970. Without relying on language, this 10-minute long black & white film weaves an enchanting moral tale. Before we get into the film though, here’s an interesting and very insightful piece on The Guardian about Kiarostami’s early works.
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Satoshi Kon’s Ohayō (Good Morning)
Here’s a one-minute long film ‘Ohayō’ by the late Japanese director Satoshi Kon. Kon’s filmography that includes ‘Paprika’, ‘Millenium Actress’ and ‘Perfect Blue’, among others, is highly impressive. In a review for ‘Paprika’, film critic Peter Travers had said, “Fiercely provocative, Paprika shames Hollywood’s use of animation as a kiddie pacifier” (Source: Rolling Stone).
Ohayō was made by Kon as part of the Ani*Kuri15 project, a series of 15 one-minute shorts that were aired on NHK, a Japanese TV station, between 2007 and 2008. You can watch it right here:
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Sai Selvarajan’s Sugarless Tea
Sugarless Tea is a film by Sai Selvarajan. Sai was born in Sri Lanka and is now based in Texas, US. He works in a post production studio called Lucky Post. Sugarless Tea is an absolutely alluring film about two brothers, stunningly shot with water color paintings using stop motion technique. You can also read our interview with Sai here.
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Koji Yamamura’s Mt. Head
Mt. Head (Original title: Atama Yama) is an animated film by Koji Yamamura. Born in 1964 in Japan, Yamamura made his first animated film when he was just 13 years old. Over the years, he has done a variety of work in animation, illustration, music videos, etc. You can read more about him and see his other works here.
And here is the Oscar nominated film (in 2003) which is a dark comedy/fantasy.
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Ira Elshansky’s Warm Snow
Centered on the complicated relationship of a father and a daughter, ‘Warm Snow’ is gorgeously animated/claymated and directed by Ira Elshansky.
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Koray Sevindi’s Ekmek (Bread)
Turkish film Ekmek, which means bread, is by director Koray Sevindi. It’s a really sweet film about the mysterious case of a missing loaf of bread in an orphanage. The film was released in 2012, and has won many awards at various film festivals across the world.
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Abbas Kiarostami’s Two Solutions for One Problem
Here is Abbas Kiarostami’s four minute film ‘Two Solutions for One Problem’ (original title: Dow Rahehal Baraye yek Massaleh) about two friends Dara and Nader. In this deceptively simple film made in 1975, Kiarostami beautifully and poignantly captures the ideas of friendship and conflict.