Bucko!
2019 · 10m · USA
Directed by Deni Cheng
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic, tender
Gloria needs forty bucks to catch a bus out of Chinatown to Virginia, but old friends and old habits keep pulling her back. She tries to sell a beat-up phone while making the rounds of her crew.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
MiniDV, no lights, a Chinatown bus ticket as the entire engine of plot. This is the anti-prestige short, and I am here for every grainy second of it.
The miniDV-and-available-light approach situates Cheng in a venerable NYC street-cinema lineage running from the Maysles through early Safdies, and Eloisa Santos sounds like a genuine discovery. I'd watch this on the strength of the texture alone.
MiniDV, no artificial light, Chinatown-to-Virginia bus-money hustle — the format choice does half the dramaturgical work here, and Eloisa Santos getting singled out as captivating is a good sign for performance over plot.
Reviews
a dead-on authentic supporting cast that keeps it darkly funny and consistently engrossing.