Tina Kakadelis
More often than not, it’s the feature films at festival that receive all the spotlight, but many of tomorrow’s best directors are making short films today. Here’s a short film round up with selections from the Narrative and Texas Short Film Competitions at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival.
I’m the Most Racist Person I Know
Objectively, there are a few bad ways to ask someone out on a date. Pick-up lines are generally frowned upon and sliding into DMs has a high likelihood of being misconstrued, but perhaps the worst way to ask someone out is to write a song about them and force them to watch you perform it. That’s the inciting incident of Leela Varghese’s I’m the Most Racist Person I Know.
Lali (Shabana Azeez) has developed feelings for Holly (Erin Paterson), a bartender she hasn’t really spoken to, but has crushed on from afar. One day, Lali works up the courage to ask Holly out through a song she wrote about a dinosaur shirt Holly wore weeks ago. It’s a crushing blow when Lali learns that the dino shirt belongs to Holly’s girlfriend. Unable to watch this awkwardness unfold any longer, another bartender, Ana (Kavitha Anandasivam), takes pity on Lila and says she’ll take her on a date. For the first time, Lali finds herself on a date with another woman of color and is forced to reevaluate prejudices she didn’t realize she was holding onto.
The title of I’m the Most Racist Person I Know is intimidating. It makes the viewer feel like they’re about to watch a heady, deeply introspective short film, but the opening scene immediately inverts those expectations. Someone earnestly singing a ballad about a girl in a dinosaur t-shirt is deeply unserious, but its purpose is so impactful. This first scene is a smart way to bring the audience in before sneaking into the heavier conversations that naturally come about between Ana and Lali. They share their feelings about being women of color in the world of dating, and it’s a bit of a wake-up call for Lali. I’m the Most Racist Person I Know is deeply layered, and one of those layers just so happens to be ooey-gooey romance. Even with a short runtime, the film manages to paint a realistic picture of the cross section of identity and dating in the 21st century, while never losing the heart-fluttering romance of it all.
How Was Your Weekend?
Corporate America is its own type of hellscape. There are certain phrases one can utter that will send shivers down the spine. One of those phrases is “how was your weekend?” It’s a question that is likely uttered millions of times every Monday morning in offices around the world. No matter the language spoken, there’s something profoundly irritating in having to answer the question every single week until you retire. It’s understandable that this distinct source of frustration makes for a surreal horror flick.
The aptly-titled How Was Your Weekend? is skin-crawlingly uncomfortable. It’s Monday morning for Steven (James Morosini), and before he even gets out of his car in the parking garage, it’s clear he doesn’t want to be there. How many times can Steven hear “how was your weekend?” before he fully loses his mind?
Clocking in at around nine minutes, How Was Your Weekend? perfectly plots Steven’s attempts to make it through the day. Anyone who has worked at a job they hate knows the feeling of putting on a positive front to make it through the day, even when they’re dying inside. No matter how many times a company tries to make you believe you’re part of a family, you’re not. Also, no one really cares about how your weekend went. As How Was Your Weekend? shows, you either live long enough to leave the job you hate or you become the thing you despise.
Synthesize Me
Grief manifests in wildly different ways. When we lose someone, we cling to the things we remember about them. Their hobbies, their favorite foods, what they liked to watch when they were sick at home. Bear Damen’s Synthesize Me is an exploration of the way grief can take hold of someone and how two people, even those related by blood, can experience loss in vastly different ways.
Violeta (Ivanna Plantier) is the daughter of a widowed electrical maintenance worker (Antonio Trejo Sanchéz). She spends her days working with her father, but unbeknownst to her dad, Violeta collects spare electrical parts. Her goal is to make her mother’s abandoned music studio functional again as a way to bring her mother back to life. When Violeta’s father discovers her secret project, their relationship reaches a boiling point they may not recover from.
The visual look of Synthesize Me is rich and warm. The film is drenched in nostalgia, yet firmly planted in the present. As much as Violeta and her father are desperate to return to the time when Violeta’s mother was alive, they’re forced to live in an empty reality without her. Violeta’s mother’s music studio is filled with synthesizers and an oscilloscope that sits on the desk. Synthesize Me’s build-up to the first notes that Violeta plinks out on one of her mother’s synthesizers is stunning. It’s more than notes on an instrument. It’s a connection to someone who is no longer here. One of the short film’s most stunning moments is when the image cuts between the oscilloscope and a flashback to Violeta’s mother’s heart monitor. Synthesize Me shows how we can keep loved ones alive long after they’ve passed.
Neuro
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could just forget the bad things that happened in our lives? Instead of endlessly obsessing over pain and trauma from the past, wouldn’t it be great if those memories were simply replaced? Such are the questions at the heart of Neuro, a short film about a newlywed couple (Samantha Robinson & John Valley) who experience a traumatic event on their wedding night. In the aftermath, they seek the help of Neuro, a company that promises to replace bad memories with artificial good ones. Of course everything isn’t what it seems, and there’s a darker side to Neuro.
The most staggering aspect of Neuro is its look. The film takes place in the 1970s and really revels in the retro-futurism style that was so prevalent then. Comparisons will inevitably be drawn to Severance for the similar brain-related medical procedures and the mid-century modern aesthetic, but Neuro stands on its own. Writer/director Wes Ellis has packed so much into the brief runtime. He touches on lingering PTSD from the Vietnam War in the American consciousness, Alzheimer’s, and the way one night can fundamentally alter a relationship forever. Ellis plans to adapt Neuro into a feature film and he deserves the chance to take it to the big screen. Neuro is a fantastic introduction to someone who has the makings of a visionary sci-fi director.
Unholy
In 2020, Emma Seligman wrote and directed Shiva Baby, a comedy disguised as a horror movie about the unbearable nature of family get-togethers. Spiritually, Daisy Friedman’s short film Unholy can be seen as a follow-up of sorts. It’s a continuation of the horrors associated with the traditions that hold families and cultures together, and what happens when a person’s medical condition prevents them from participating in those traditions. Unholy centers on Noa (Olivia Nikkanen) as she attends her family’s Passover Seder dinner for the first time since being put on a feeding tube for a gastrointestinal disorder.
Unholy is extraordinarily uncomfortable. The audience can sense Noa’s desire to be treated as she always has been, but her family has no idea how to do that. They fuss over every move she makes, every word she says, and always have an eye trained on her. Unholy creates a fascinating duality of long-standing traditions butting heads with reasonable small changes. Can Noa still be spiritual if what connected her most to her religious identity was a ritual that involves food? It’s a taut, agonizing fifteen minutes, much like Seligman’s short film version of Shiva Baby. Should Friedman take Unholy to feature length, she’d be in good company. There’s more than enough potential in the short film to expand to something larger.
