Bellmouth
2019 · 16m · United Kingdom
Directed by Joseph Roberts
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Seen through the eyes of young Amy, a father and daughter live in makeshift accommodation, camping for refuge rather than for fun.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the camping story to break your heart with poverty or parental failure, but Roberts just... watches them exist together in a tent, which somehow feels more subversive than any twist could be.
A quietly composed portrait of precarity that locates itself in the lineage of intimate social realism—the formal restraint and observational editing create a gravity that resists sentimentality.
The decision to shoot entirely from Amy's eye-level and perspective—never cutting to the father's face in ways that would let us judge him—transforms what could be a sympathetic drama into something structurally more complex and unsettling.
Reviews
Joseph Roberts' short manages to match the joy and energy of childhood excitement against the hardships of growing up and becoming your own person. It's a real slice-of-life piece of filmmaking and the way Roberts renders the family dynamic is both gripping and heartbreaking.