This spring, ShortHaus Cinema takes another trip around the globe to feature international directors. First stop: for Women’s History Month, we have the evocative and disarming work of Scottish director Lynne Ramsay. Then, for Arab American Heritage Month, we have the continent-hopping, up-and-coming independent filmmaker Rakan Mayasi. Finally, we’re stopping in South Korea for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month to explore my personal favorite director, Bong Joon-ho.
Second Annual Short Film Competition
This March, we’re also hosting our Second Annual Short Film Competition! Modeled off the 48 Hour Film Project, you will have just one week to fully script, shoot and edit your short film. If you have an idea you’ve wanted to get out of your head, now is the perfect time to do so. First place wins $100!
March: Lynne Ramsay
Tuesday, March 4, 7–8 p.m. (Drop in)
Unsettling films about death and adolescence make up the bulk of Lynne Ramsay’s work. Her early interests in photography and surrealist director Maya Deren are evident in her use of beautifully poetic visuals. Using them, she tackles those complex themes with subtlety. This has been true since her critically acclaimed debut feature, Ratcatcher (1999), as well as all of her shorts that came before. We don’t own Ratcatcher, but if you’re interested, you can request it through our ILL service.
Morvern Callar (2002) was Ramsay’s first foray into literary adaptation, which became her primary mode of filmmaking. Samantha Morton stars in this harrowing story of unresolved grief and wanderlust. It reminds me of Morton’s previous starring role in Jesus’ Son (1999), a similarly desolate film made by a previously featured ShortHaus director, Alison Maclean.
Death is ever-present in the work. From the parental agony of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) to the PTSD-riddled brutality of You Were Never Really Here (2017), its aftermath and memory continue to feature in Ramsay’s adaptations.
By contrast, Ramsay’s commissioned shorts are lighter affairs. In 2012, Ramsay was commissioned to make the short Swimmer (2012) to celebrate the Summer Olympic Games. Miu Miu later commissioned her to create Brigitte (2019), a short documentary on the photographer Brigitte Lacombe.
Her work is also featured in episodes 8 and 12 in the Women Make Film series on Kanopy.
Morvern Callar
We Need to Talk About Kevin
You Were Never Really Here
April: Rakan Mayasi
Tuesday, April 1, 7–8 p.m. (Drop in)
Rakan Mayasi has called many places home in his life. He is a German-born Palestinian diaspora director. He studied film in South Korea with the late and great Iranian film director, Abbas Kiarostami. Today, he splits his time between Brussels, Belgium and Beirut, Lebanon. Despite such global reach, he continually returns to his heritage to tell the stories of the Levant. His first film, Sea Sonata (2010), focused on four refugees, one each from Palestine, Iraq, Syria and Sri Lanka. Together they dream of Europe while they share a small boat to freedom. Roubama (2012) similarly focuses on a refugee, this time inspired by a poem by Mahmoud Darwish.
Trumpets in the Sky (2021) is a beautiful visual tone poem with Kiarostami’s influence as clear as the warm blue sky. Without dialogue, it tells the story of a young Lebanese girl, only fourteen, whose childhood must come to an abrupt end when she’s sold into marriage. Thematically, it relates closely with the work of Ramsay, though with the ever-present texture of war and strife that have become all too normal in the Levant region.
Mayasi’s films Bonboné (2017) and The Key (2022) draw even closer to his heritage, narrowing in on complex Palestinian stories. Mayasi has only directed short films, but his award-winning work speaks volumes. I’m excited to see what vital work he creates in the future.
Trumpets in the Sky
May: Bong Joon-ho
Tuesday, March 4, 7–8 p.m. (Drop in)
Bong Joon-ho is most known for his Oscar-winning horror-thriller Parasite (2019), but he has long been making a name for himself in his home country. Bong’s early work played deftly with genre films, updating the thriller, noir and kaiju monster movies for a Korean audience. His take on monster movies, The Host (2006), remains one of the highest-grossing South Korean films of all time. Through his use of satire and the darkest sense of humor, Bong Joon-ho paints unrelenting portraits of class stratification, capitalism and broken systems in society.
In 2013, he broke into the English language market with Snowpiercer (2013), an adaptation of a French comic series by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette, which has since been re-adapted into a TV show starring Jennifer Connelly on TNT. Following his action-packed dystopian class analysis, he released Okja (2017), a delightful action-adventure critique of the meat industry.
Bong Joon-ho has continuously revisited the medium of shorts throughout his career. One of his early works, Incoherence (1994), is available on the Criterion release of Memories of Murder (2003). He has also made shorts for multiple anthology films. Of particular note is Influenza (2004) due to its lack of the comedic release so familiar to Bong’s work. The film is shot entirely on CCTV cameras and calls to the surveillance state seen in George Lucas’s Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB. In contrast, Shaking Tokyo (2008) is a delightful look into a Japanese hikikomori, or shut-ins, and is part of the anthology titled Tokyo! (2008).
Personally, I’m excited for Bong Joon-ho’s upcoming release, Mickey 17 (2025), an adaptation of the sci-fi novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton. Based on early reviews and interviews with lead Robert Pattinson, it’s going to be a darkly comedic romp in a uniquely horrifying dystopia.
Memories of Murder
Mother
Parasite