Writers: Timo Willman, Murry Peeters, Louise Lever, Jess Mountfield, Eve Atkinson, Vida Skerk, George Heath, Elizabeth Bowie, and May Ziadé
Directors: Timo Willman, Murry Peeters, Louise Lever, Jess Mountfield, Vida Skerk, George Heath and May Ziadé
It’s rare to see such a well-curated selection of shorts as One Night Only which focuses on lesbians, and queer and bisexual women. Heart-warming and heart-breaking these seven films show that their makers are masters of the short form.
Quite appropriately, One Night Only begins with the morning after with the eponymous Grace and Sophie navigating a new arrangement in their friendship. Bottles and glasses from the night before litter Grace’s flat which neatly alludes to the messiness of their situation. Molly Moody, looking like a young Tilda Swinton, wishes they could both be from a younger generation when the gender of your sexual partners doesn’t define you. Grace & Sophie is a short film, but is full of hope like the new morning that Sophie (Maddie Rice) cycles into.
A hangover also features in the poignant animation After the After Party, which accompanies a poem by Eve Atkinson. There’s no beginning to the story; we are thrown into the middle where two 16-year-old girls kiss, a little drunk on the white wine they guzzle from the fridge. But the next morning isn’t so sweet and the last line of Jess Mountfield’s delicately drawn film may make you gasp in pain.
The effects of alcohol are more positive in Murry Peeters’ Woman Meets Girl in which an 18-year-old girl and a 42-year-old woman share a bottle of bubble-gum flavoured schnapps. Why they are friends is never disclosed, but they seem unlikely companions. The 18-year-old Tessie is a sex worker, mostly comfortable turning tricks as she finds independence through the money she earns. On the other hand, Annabelle is a bookkeeper and her modesty and steadiness is best summed up by the small golden cross she wears around her neck. Both actors (Enuka Okuma and Chelsea Russell) are utterly committed and this slenderest of encounters could mean the world to one of their characters.
Another piece of jewellery gives insight in Louise Lever’s tragi-comedy Joey’s Heart. Joey wears a ring with the words LOVE wrought into the silver, but it’s an experience that has yet escaped her. Now nearing 50, Joey tries a little harder to find a girlfriend and, at the same time, she’s determined to increase her self-confidence. Much of the humour comes from the classes she attends to develop her self-worth; she goes to yoga classes, chants mindfulness mantras in her car and, most bizarrely, goes to laughter lessons. It is at the latter where Leaver throws the most bittersweet punch.
Vida Skerk’s Night Ride is not as sentimental and contains the dreams and nightmares of Dunja who lives in a small town in Croatia. She wants to leave for the city, but in her dreams she returns home and in one nightmare is working in the local supermarket. What is keeping her from leaving town is Sara, a friend and perhaps lover. The film is deliberately obstruse, but is beautifully filmed.
The sense of home appears, too, in Neo Nahda when Mona finds (real) photos of cross-dressing Middle Eastern women from the 1920s. Why these women are dressed as men we shall never find out but the women, one in a fez, begin to haunt Mona, both in her room and in the café in which she works. What can she learn from these women in the past? Can they offer other ways of living? May Ziadé’s film is smart and intriguing
One film, Kitchen Sink Fantasy, doesn’t work in the selection. It’s a youthful exploration of gender-swapping Charlie, who is on a quest to find a sword at a house-party. Its busy YA aesthetic is interesting, but is at odds with the more brooding nature of the surrounding films. George Heath’s film does, however, feature a stunning performance from its main star, Maungo Pelekekae.
One Night Only is screening at BFI Flare 2023 from 15-26 March.
