‘2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour Review: Small Bites

Every year, features from the Sundance Film Festival can become critical favorites — “Past Lives” is a notable example — but the fest’s shorter works can fade away. The “2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour” brings a seven-film omnibus to cinemas throughout the nation, and Kayla Abuda Galang’s “When You Left Me on That Boulevard” alone is motive sufficient to see it.

This beautiful and humorous brief portrays a Filipino American household’s Thanksgiving get-together by way of the eyes of Ly, an introverted teenager who’s a daydreamer even earlier than she will get stoned together with her cousins. It’s a movie that incorporates each bustling photographs and delicate vibes, inner-voice stillness and refined soundscapes, all of which may flourish in a movie show.

Galang appears particularly drawn to dialing into non-public areas in social conditions, for instance when Ly talks about her boyfriend as if to herself, till a minimize reveals she’s surrounded by members of the family. Ly can sound endearingly oblivious, however as an alternative of getting the actor play that tendency for affordable laughs, the writer-director picks up on the heat within the room.

Galang additionally seems out for various methods of displaying how the household is collectively, whether or not it’s karaoke — the brief’s title comes from a music Ly’s aunt belts out — or a cool cut up shot of youngsters and oldsters hanging out on both aspect of a wall. If previous Sundance collections are any information, this brief would possibly preview a characteristic, and Galang’s immersive exploration of interior and outer areas makes one keen to observe what comes subsequent.

Family bonds climate transitions in plenty of the shorts. “Parker,” from Catherine Hoffman and Sharon Liese, the only documentary on this choice, teases out a wealthy, arduous historical past of Black expertise in a choice by members of a household in Kansas City to undertake the identical surname. Interviews with the dad and mom and their kids present the love, and the fears and trauma, that may be inscribed in a reputation, and the peace of thoughts and unity promised by their alternative.

Resembling vérité nonfiction, Crystal Kayiza’s “Rest Stop” follows a Ugandan-American mom touring together with her three kids to affix her estranged companion. Kayiza dwells on scenes {that a} characteristic would possibly relegate to a montage, the higher to take a seat with feeling unsettled and drained and scattered, however pushing forward to a different future. Liz Sargent’s “Take Me Home” can be a portrait in changing into, as an overwhelmed, cognitively disabled girl (performed by Sargent’s real-life sister, Anna) sends an S.O.S. to her sister after years of counting on their ailing mom.

Comedies are well-represented within the assortment: “Pro Pool” looks like a trailer for itself because it churns by way of retail office humor, whereas the stop-motion animation “Inglorious Liaisons” fondly portrays a goofy teen get together, whereby individuals have gentle switches for faces. But Aemilia Scott’s shrewdly written, well-cast opener to this system, “Help Me Understand,” turns a spotlight group of ladies testing detergent scents right into a nervy experiment in hung-jury dynamics. Shifting gears from satire to a double-edged dissection of viewpoint, it’s a handy guide a rough method of prepping viewers for the multiplicity of voices to observe.

2023 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters.