Ballast
2020 · 16m · Ireland
Directed by Jesse Gilbert
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Michael, a man living a solitary life in rural West Cork and consumed by grief, builds a hot air balloon out of tissue paper as his means of escape from a shattered existence.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A grief film where the protagonist literally builds his own exit vehicle out of tissue paper should either be unbearably on-the-nose or genuinely strange—Gilbert walks a wire most would fall off, and the fact that it mostly works is almost irritating to admit.
The restraint here is remarkable: no score swells, no trained actors performing *emotion*, just West Cork locals and a handmade balloon that reads as both fragile and defiant—a formal clarity that recalls the quieter traditions of Bresson and Kiarostami.
The decision to cast actual non-actors from the community and shoot the balloon-building in real time, unadorned, transforms what could be metaphorical heavy-handedness into something tactile and earned—it's the specificity of craft that makes the concept breathe.
Reviews
A profound meditation on loss — the loss of a child and the loss of a pet — and the brooding desire to be alone with grief.
Loved the otherwise lack of dialogue as it visually spoke for itself.
Festivals
- Galway Film Fleadh 2020, Best Debut Short
- Cork International Film Festival 2020, Best Cork Short
- Stockholm Independent Film Festival 2020, Winner
- Sheffield Independent Film Festival 2020
- Bergamo Film Meeting 2021