Make Do or Mend
2018 · 5m · UK
Directed by Christopher Bevan
Two rival hunters on the run with a coveted trophy must decide whether to accept their fate or fight back as deadly competitors close in. A taut post-apocalyptic chamber piece built around the brutal economics of survival.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Post-apocalyptic survival thriller sounds like boilerplate until you realize the real tension isn't between hunter and hunted—it's two people forced to negotiate their own obsolescence in 48 hours of filmmaking. Bevan gets the subversive part right: the trophy stops mattering.
A disciplined chamber piece that understands its debts to survival cinema while resisting grandeur; the constraint of the 48-hour challenge becomes a formal argument about economy and necessity, which is exactly what the premise demands.
Built a entire post-apocalyptic world from salvage in two days, but the film's real stroke is how the rival dynamic flips—you can feel the moment Bevan chooses to make this about complicity rather than combat, and that single tonal pivot elevates what could've been a genre exercise into something harder to forget.
Reviews
Atmospheric sci-fi storytelling about hunting and survival, with inspired photography and crafted tension.
Festivals
- Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge 2018, Special Mention
- The Short Cinema 2018
- Fargo Fantastic Film Festival 2018
- Birmingham Film Festival 2018, Nominated: Best Micro Short, Best Production Design, Best Costume