And we are back with another installment in our Fantastic Short Film Friday series, as we continue to showcase films released in the "lesser" known form of cinema- the short film.
It's time for another Sundance nominated short from this years film festival. Like the short Arm, the organizers of Sundance have given all short film lovers the pleasure of checking out their nominees and deciding for ourselves which are our favorites. So again, I wanted to take the time and share the love. This one is a 12-minute drama called, First Birthday from filmmaker Andrew Ahn. It's a deceptively simple story, about a gay man going to the first birthday celebration of his brother's son, but there's a hidden sadness in the actor's performance that understates what this story is really about, the loss of man in a conventional world..
Here's the synopsis from Sundance:
A gay Korean-American man years for a family life that is just out of reach.
Now I can't embed it here since you can only watch the full short at Sundance's short film site on yahoo, but lucky for all of us its free! Check the film out here.
I'm Asian myself, and Asian culture can be tough on those that they view are on the outside. I've never had to face the trials from families that other Asians have faced, but I'm always fascinated by how we all treat one another. Here, the family is supportive of the main character, although to be fair we never see how it was when he first came out to his family. However that's not important. What's important is that regardless of how his family feels about him, he still feels lost, alone, saddened by the fact he can never have the life of what he perceives family "should" be, and in our lives, isn't it all about perception?
Check this out if you like meditative takes on the everyday lives of people. Check this out if you've ever felt out of step, out of place in the world as you continually look for the solace of peace. Enjoy this weeks dose of short form goodness in, First Birthday.
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