LSFF Competition: A Trick Of The Light

One of four programmes celebrating the latest in short filmmaking talent.

  • Total running time 87min

Perception is of course subjective, but the collective viewing experience can conjure a magic all of its own. Images swirl and distort in our memories, and films we’ve seen can swim to the surface years later. The films in this programme subvert the visual medium, playing tricks on the viewer and manipulating images from decades ago using AI. Analogue cinema is alive and well in the townships of Tanzania thanks to a community of dedicated cinephiles, and reality becomes slippery in the primeval Finnish forest, making us question the veracity of documentary filmmaking.

Rachel MacLean (Make Me Up) returns to LSFF with her latest mind-bending work Duck, reanimating screen icons to disturbing and alluring effect. The decades-old mystery of missing British adult film actress Kathy Harcourt is reinvestigated in Flyby Kathy.

Scenic View
Director Maija Blåfield, Finland 2023, 16min

DUCK
Director Rachel Maclean, UK 2023, 16min

Love is Free
Director Hannah Renton, UK 2022, 15min

Flyby Kathy
Director Pedro Bastos, Portugal 2023, 10min

The Fruit Tree
Director Isabelle Tollenaere, Belgium 2022, 14min

Apostles of Cinema
Director Cece Mlay, Darragh Amelia, Gertrude Malizana, Jesse Gerard Mpango, Tanzania 2022, 16min