70+ Favorite Shorts of 2019

During 2019, I watched more than 700 shorts, many of which were submitted for the first Kinoskop and considered for its seven selections, or screened at Hazel Eye Film Festival and via the Festival Scope platform. I also had access to a number of works by artists whom I've come in contact with, and not to mention the bottomless pits of Vimeo and YouTube where I discovered a few channels worth subscribing to, such as Random Acts (art films), Alter (horror) and Dust (sci-fi). After going through my notes, I realized there are over 150 films rated 8 or higher, and still remaining vividly in my memory. (Hell, I even remember good few of 7s!) Considering that listing them all may turn away some readers, I'll narrow down my choices to the offerings not older than 3 years, i.e. released in the period 2017-2019, and organize them into several categories.

ANIMATED REVERIES

1. The Flying Fish (Murat Sayginer, 2019)

2. The Tesla World Light (Matthew Rankin, 2017)

3. Into the Flame (Sean McClintock, 2019)

4. Cali Ball (Shon Kim, 2018)

5. The Extinct Suite (Anna Malina Zemlianski, 2017)

6. Plateau in Ascension (Joe Hambleton, 2018)

7. A Sun Will Always Sing (Chad Thompson, 2019)

8. Freight (Sava Živković, 2019)

9. Belial’s Dream (Robert Morgan, 2017)

10. Mold (Sujin Kim, 2019)

+ Honorable mentions go to the animated series Undone (Hisko Hulsing) & Love, Death & Robots (Tim Miller, 2019).

DOCUMENTARIES & ENIGMAS

1. SD103: Snakes & Ladders (Daniel & Clara, 2019)

2. Bodies And Space And Place And Home (Sarah C. Prinz, 2018)

3. Fugue (Steven Adam Renkovish, 2017)

4. My Echo, My Shadow and Me (Roger Deutsch, 2019)

5. Soil (Alican Durbaş, 2017)

6. Merry-Go-Round (Ihor Podolchak, 2017)

7. And What Is the Summer Saying? (Payal Kapadia, 2018)

8. They Looked at Me and I Smiled (Benjamin Edelberg, 2019)

9. The Place from Where I Write (Nikolina Bogdanović, 2018)

10. Inventario Churubusco (Elena Pardo, 2018)

GENRE SUBVERSIONS

1. Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You (Brandon Cronenberg, 2019)

2. He Was Called Chaos Bērziņš (Signe Birkova, 2018)

3. Commission (Ieva Belode, 2019)

4. The Underworld (Jann Clavadetscher, 2019)

5. Floralis (Johnny Clyde, 2019)

7. Ready or Not (Eleanor Dolan, 2018)

7. The Stranger (Pip Chodorov, 2018)

8. At Dawn the Flowers Open the Gates of Paradise (Elzbieta Piekacz, 2018)

9. Spring II (Ed Carter, 2019)

10. The Gift (Dumas Haddad, 2019)

ECOLOGICAL & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

1. We Are Opposite Like That (Himali Singh Soin, 2019)

2. Furnace (Kent Tate, 2019)

3. 80613 (Kalainithan Kalaichelvan, 2019)

4. Tendency to Collapse (Marta Węglińska, 2018)
5. How to Find Silence in a Noisy World? (Adam Loften & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, 2018)
6. Olla (Ariane Labed, 2019)

7. Lui Lack, tú no tienes la culpa (Stefan M. Mladenović, 2019)

8. Rain (Martin Gerigk, 2017)

9. It Wasn't Meant to Be Sexy! (Claudia Siefen-Leitich, 2018)

10. Ecos (Mariana Dianela Torres, 2018)

INNERMOST POETRY

1. Auricular Confession (Martin Del Carpio, 2019)

2. Aleph (Antonia Luxem, 2018)

3. It Will End in Tears (Susu Laroche, 2018)

4. Cornered Star (Melanie Manchot, 2018)

5. I’m Not a Doctor (Michael Higgins, 2019)

6. Inward Light (Gabriel Linhares Falcão, 2018)

7. Tactus Memoriae (Camelia Mirescu, 2017)

8. Anima (Jared Michael Sobotka, 2019)

9. Solstitium (Justin Brown, 2019)

10. I Don’t Own Anxiety (Marie Craven, 2019)

MAGIC, ALCHEMY & NEO-SURREALISM

1. Kinetics (Atoosa Pour Hosseini, 2018) 

2. Crowned and Conquering (Zareh Tjeknavorian, 2019)

3. Night Mother Scent (Takatoshi Arai, 2017)

4. Moonlight People (Dmitrii Frolov, 2019)

5. In the Arbor of the Bitter Orange (Sarahjane Swan & Roger Simian, 2017)

6. Where The Night Ends (Petr Makaj, 2018)

7. Je te tiens (Sergio Caballero, 2019)

8. Pwdre Ser: the rot of stars (Charlotte Pryce, 2018)

9. Obatala Film (Sebastian Wiedeman, 2019)

10. Horse Follows Darkness (Delia Gonzalez, 2017)

+ Honorable mention: Islands (Yann Gonzalez, 2017)

THE ART OF MUSIC VIDEOS

1. M83 - Temple of Sorrow / Lune De Fiel / Feelings (Bertrand Mandico, 2019)
2. Amenra - A Solitary Reign (Tine Guns, 2017)

3. Stimming x Lambert - Edelweiss (Dalibor Barić, 2019)

4. Rage Park (Stathis Athanasiou, 2019)

5. Kriill - Your Eyes, Will I Ever (Félicien Colmet Daâge, 2018)

6. Thom Yorke - Last I Heard (…He Was Circling The Drain) (Art Camp & Saad Moosajee, 2019)

7. TWRP - Starlight Brigade (feat. Dan Avidan) (India Swift, 2019)

THE POWER OF THE ABSURD

1. Ghoulish Galactic Grievances (Josh Owen, 2019)

2. Universal Ear: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum (Graeme Cole, 2019)

3. Grand Bouquet (Nao Yoshigai, 2019)

4. Šafarikova 19 (Lana Pavkov, 2018)

5. The Brother (Kai Fiáin, 2018)