The film opens with a beautiful frame of a lovely girl sitting inside a cafe, reading. In the background, a
radio jockey is discussing the topic ‘The Rights of Man’ in his programme and making commentaries on
the causes, flaws and the future of civilisation, as though laying the groundwork for the events that
are about to unfold that evening. It is almost midnight and a handsome stranger takes up a seat at the table
next to hers. He approaches her for a conversation. The setting is so charming, the viewer can’t help but
see it as serendipitous. As the conversation ensues, the girl's estranged lover arrives, and wreaks chaos
on the quiet. However, the girl and the stranger continue their story into the night, fulfilling the promise and the intention the film had opened on, perhaps even allowing the audience a fitting conclusion.

This Side Of Town | Short Film Nominee

The title of the film establishes a binary that would come to define its core underpinnings. When a philosophy graduate finds himself unemployed, while his wife becomes the earning member of their household, he grapples with a sense of emasculation that threatens to acquire staggering proportions. The narrative does a notable job of portraying the oppressiveness of a relationship where your object of love also becomes the object of resentment. 

The film noir aesthetic further allows the visuals to aptly represent these grey territories one might find themselves confined to. 

 The single-room setting acquires a stage-like quality, allowing the drama to unfold in a controlled, but organic manner. Piles of philosophy books, their titles telling their own stories, lie mixed with images of women on cardboard boxes. Like relics of a life that once was - a wedding picture, a stuffed toy, little objects are strewn in the entire space to give the viewer a glimpse into a union that was once marked by love.

 

As much as the film is about a seemingly endless battle between a husband and wife, it is also about one between two genders at war with each other in a patriarchal set-up controlled by its rigid ideas of what defines male and female. Additionally, there is the attempt to bring to life a world of books which has deemed the man unfit for the practical world his wife exhibits. Consequently, any query that she may raise is answered in the words of a philosopher, politician or scientist. And lastly, the closing thought the film leaves you with is about the unbreakability of a toxic equation. This situation of extreme discord and violence is perhaps an oft-repeated one for the couple, and yet, they refuse to let go of their relationship. However, within the folds of this specific evening rests a possibility of hope for the characters, and maybe a sense of hope for the warring factions of gender as well as society.

Malefemale | Short Film Nominee

Eleventh Hour begins with a quote – “True redemption is seized when you accept the future
consequences for your past actions.” 
It is the kind of film that constantly underscores a grave tension in the narrative. The cinematography
follows each gesture and movement of the protagonist, pervading the scene with a sense of suspicion
and foreboding. The viewer is constantly kept on their toes through this mode that makes one anxious
as to what the next move could hold. 
It seems like not a whole lot is happening in the film until after the first half. Then, there is a murder. By
this time, however, it is no longer shocking for the audience, because that sense of the sinister has been
suffused into the narrative from the start. It also seems like the cause or reason for the murder was
never the main concern of the film. Its intention seems much more to mould itself around the film noir
form.

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