Mate
2021 · 33m · Australia
Directed by George-Alex Nagle
Genres: drama
Tones: melancholic, provocative, tender
In working-class Western Sydney, a down-and-out drifter trapped in destructive patterns spends a tense weekend with an impressionable teenage boy, as their fragile bond forces both to confront uncomfortable truths about masculinity and the future.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
First Australian film to win Clermont-Ferrand International Grand Prix at 33 minutes — that's not casual praise, that's the most important short film festival on the planet. Working-class Western Sydney plus that credential is enough. Yes.
First Australian film ever to win Clermont-Ferrand International Grand Prix is genuinely curatorially significant, and Nagle's thirty-three-minute Western Sydney working-class portrait demands the investment it asks for. The Fish Tank comparison is well-claimed.
33-minute Western Sydney drama that won the Clermont-Ferrand International Grand Prix — first Australian film to ever do so — is a genuinely massive credit. Compressed-feature short with Joshua Brennan and Jeremy Blewitt; this is a top-tier short-form pedigree.
Reviews
An impeccable slice of kitchen sink drama...explores the push and pull of the desire for a future that will get better and regret for a wasted past.
Both the relationship depicted between the characters and the performance from both actors is highly effective.