The Chair
2012 · 12m · USA
Directed by Grainger David
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
In a small Southern town, a mysterious outbreak of poisonous mold kills a woman and leaves her son struggling to understand his grief, his grandmother's fixation on a discarded recliner, and the inexplicable plague devastating their community.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Cannes Short Film Palme d'Or competition, SXSW Jury, LA Film Festival Jury, Berlinale, Telluride. That stack of prizes is real. Southern Gothic with mold and a cursed recliner — twelve minutes, specific texture. Grainger David's debut is the actual deal here.
Grainger David's Southern Gothic debut earned a Palme d'Or short competition slot for good reason: the spreading mold operates simultaneously as plague, grief metaphor, and matter-of-fact regional detail.
David builds Southern Gothic atmosphere through production design alone — the mold as both literal plague and emotional inheritance is the kind of single-image storytelling shorthand that separates thesis films that travel festivals from ones that don't.
Festivals
- Cannes Film Festival 2012
- SXSW 2012, Jury Prize
- Berlinale 2013
- Los Angeles Film Festival 2012, Jury Prize
- Aspen ShortsFest 2012
- Telluride Film Festival 2012