Backsiders
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by Craig Newman, Jen Pitt
Genres: drama, experimental, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
A forgotten photo drags two exes back into contact — Andy, now transitioning while caring for his ailing mother, and Holly, who wants the picture back. Halfway through, the film blows up its own form.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Any short that has the guts to detonate its own structure at the midpoint deserves a look. Bonus: it's actually about something — trans identity, caregiving, the past refusing to die — not just formal flexing.
A film that midway demolishes its own theatrical realism and reconstitutes as something more experimental is a serious formal gesture, and the Reichardt-to-Ramsay arc described here is exactly the kind of risk I want shorts taking. Promising on multiple counts.
Quiet character work — trans transition, ailing mother, ex retrieving a photo — that then deconstructs itself mid-film into experimental reprise; that structural fracture is a bold ask. If the form-break lands, this is doing something most shorts don't dare.
Reviews
Nicely shot and performed, the film deconstructs itself mid-way, elevating its measured theatrical/literary foundations into some sort of experimental re-do.