httpvh://youtu.be/GrgKJtEJSbg

MAGGOT FEEDER (Dir: Priit Tender)

Based on an ancient Chukchi folk tale, this superb short combines live action spliced into drawn animation, to great effect. A man toils in the snowy wastes, culling seals to feed himself, but also to keep alive a mysterious, writhing nest of ravenous maggots that live at the bottom of well. He secretly hates his wife, as she has borne him no children, and he plots to kill her by feeding her to the maggots. At home, his wife sits preparing food and stitching clothing, seemingly unaware of her husband’s grisly duties and dark intentions. One day, a cigarette-smoking spider-lady appears and makes a promise that changes her prospects entirely.

Featuring ’50s-style, black and white sci-fi-style effects superimposed over a cartoonish landscape, the overall colour palette is muted and consists largely of white, black and shades of grey with slashes of red seal blood. The voice acting, sound effects and background music are extremely well done and compliment the action perfectly, to create a pleasingly strange and discomforting atmosphere.

MY CONDOLENCES (Dir: Margus Paju)

We find a family-run cannabis farm out in the woods. A daughter is leaving to travel elsewhere, but complains of the inconvenience of their remote location, and so has enlisted the help of a kindly passerby who has a car. The rest of the family panic, realising this interloper may discover their crimes, and they prepare to kill him off. But all is not what it seems: the tables turn, and the family find they are the ones in danger.

A superbly well-executed micro-thriller, this tale of duplicity and betrayal is shot with a Tarantino-esque eye for detail that demonstrates a great talent for building tension while maintaining a lightness of touch. It looks lush to boot. It snows at the end.

OLGA (Dir: Kaur Kokk)

Olga is an irritable but kind lady who works as the supervisor of a small urban car park. In the days between Christmas and the New Year, the relentlessly heavy snow must be swept from the paths and cleaned from the vehicles to maintain order. Her daughter’s car gets special attention, but she seems ungrateful for this and unwilling to engage with her mother’s mobile phone calls. Making life more complex for Olga is the presence of a gentleman who sleeps in his car (after having gambled his money away) and now drinks to forget; often placing a burden on her. Olga’s maternal instincts prompt her to care for him, retrieving his lost hat from a snow drift and picking up his loose change after he makes an inebriated attempt to settle his bill. She is a mother at heart, and resolves to escape the car park and visit her daughter.

The film doesn’t really have much to offer other than some gentle humour and a spoonful of empathy. The core message is – as Mr T says – treat your mother right. Give her a call tonight, she’d love to hear from you.

httpvh://youtu.be/jzcG0nNXSQI

TRIANGLE AFFAIR (Dir: Andres Tenusaar)

Dark and inscrutable, TRIANGLE AFFAIR takes us on a circuit beginning and ending with black triangles, turning like gears in the night sky; dotted with orange lights that glow like subdued stars. Down in the snow-less City below, hand-headed widow cleaners dance with janitors, and crows draw chalk lines on the roof of a building as if conducting some occult ceremony.

There’s probably a profound message here somewhere, but it escaped me. I liked the stop-motion animation, and the menacing caws and dark magic of the crows.

VILLA ANTROPOFF (Dirs: Kaspar Jancis, Vladimir Leschiov)

A desert island-dwelling castaway makes a break for freedom and paddles a crate across the ocean. In a land far away, a cocaine-huffing groom prepares to marry his huge-breasted WAG. Each time he takes a snort, his head expands.

While animated using a trembling, sketched style that is reminiscent of an old crisps advert that I very much enjoyed remembering, I did not get much of any value from Villa Antropoff. There was no snow.

httpvh://youtu.be/nZnvzs4R0-I