Algo en el Jardín (Something in the Garden)
2021 · 6m · Chile
Directed by Marcos Sánchez
A shape-shifting creature lurks in the darkness of a suburban neighborhood at night, devouring residents and animals. A curious blue-haired teenager trespasses into a neighbor's backyard to confront it.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Four years of one guy alone with ink and digital paint, prioritizing dread over plot — that's the right ratio. Charles Burns by way of Perfect Blue is the kind of name-dropping I actually buy when the runtime is six minutes.
Four years of solo ink-on-paper labor in service of Charles Burns-style suburban dread, with SXSW's Special Jury Recognition for Visceral Storytelling — Sánchez is treating darkness itself as a narrative agent, which is the rarest discipline. Six minutes of pure atmospheric authorship.
Four years of solo ink-on-paper animation by Sánchez, with darkness and shadow used as active storytelling elements rather than mood — that's a Charles Burns-level commitment to a single tactile texture, and the SXSW Special Jury for Visceral Storytelling tracks. Six minutes of pure atmospheric craft.
Reviews
You won't see a creepier film on Short of the Week all year — a visually impressive piece where the combination of aesthetic and atmosphere really make this piece such a success.
Simple and unsettling, with an eerie quality — the distinctive use of shadow and pure black backgrounds as storytelling devices gives the film its arresting presence.
Festivals
- Sitges Film Festival 2021
- SXSW Film Festival 2022, Special Jury Recognition for Visceral Storytelling
- Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival 2022, Best Animated Short
- GLAS Animation Festival 2022
- Encounters Film Festival 2022