BAFTA SHORT FILM 2021
This shortfilm is a long-gestating project developing the waximation technique first used by Mole in The Fat Cat. Having repeatedly drawn on Edward Lear’s poem as a subject for paintings and drawings the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its publication gave Mole the impetus – and deadline – to turn the images into a film.
With most of the world under COVID lockdown restrictions Mole took to his garage and began the task of etching the film into a thin layer of wax one frame at a time. Shot on Dragonframe and edited in After Effects and Premiere the filming took about three months to complete. ‘Making of’ clips are available to view on his Instagram account (hill.mole).
A couple’s relationship becomes strained by mental health issues and feelings of obsession.
An 8-year-old girl with an ability to sense danger gets ejected from Sunday school service. She unwittingly witnesses the underbelly in and around a Mega Church in Lagos.
Ben, a young man in the choir, who after his voice breaks in the middle of a solo, has a crisis of faith and decides to flee his community. He meets a group of nomads who take him in, although Ben hides a secret about who he really is, and must decide what to do with himself.
A father and daughter attempt to buy a wedding anniversary gift in the Palestinian enclaves of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The film opens with Yusef waiting to cross the crowded checkpoint 300 near Bethlehem early in the morning. Then, at Yusef’s home, he and his wife Noor talk about their wedding anniversary. Yusef says he will go on a shopping trip to Beitunia to buy a gift with his daughter Yasmine. Their progress in both directions is restricted by a series of checkpoints. The scenes portray how Palestinians are deprived of the basic right to freedom of movement.
Uloaku works the graveyard shift at a dead end service station and is bored out of her mind, but a chance encounter with a suspicious stranger will soon fix that.
Rioting spreads as social inequality causes tempers in a struggling community to flare, but the oppressive environment takes on a life of its own as the shadows of the housing estate close in.
