The MIFF Accelerator Shorts 2 program included a staggering variety of films, all unique in terms of style and theme, but bound by a shared examination of escape, identity, and societal constraints. The diverse selection presented an invaluable insight into the potential of short films to communicate meaningful stories in a matter of minutes.

 I don’t know if I will ever get to watch Us and the Night again given its unique formatting and distribution, but it’s quite radically put my love of film into perspective.

Through the Summer of 1991 in rural Massachusetts, the unapologetic yet awkward 11-year-old Lacy (newcomer Zoe Ziegler) is entrenched in the captivating orbit of her mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson).

Much like Godzilla’s messy and complicated birth as a concept and popular culture figure, I too feel as though I’ve come out of this experience a strange creature. It’s something I won’t soon forget.

Timestalker tells the story of a woman named Agnes who keeps falling in love with the wrong man in several different time periods, after being continuously reincarnated.

A quietly ambitious work sure to attract allegations of pretension, Raven Jackson swings big in All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.

With complex, figurative ideas, eccentric leading performances, and a tense atmosphere, Cuckoo leads with promise.

Like its idiosyncratic subject matter, DEVO is a poignantly hyperkinetic ninety-minute examination of rock music’s most misunderstood band.

If there was ever a flick to skip the popcorn on, it’s this one. Coralie Fargeat’s latest film, The Substance (2024), is a stomach-churning concoction of body horror and comedy that makes for an insanely monstrous watch.  

I’m tempted to call this a modern Macbeth.

Peter Weir’s second feature The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) has an underlying power, and it’s both due to how raw it is as a cultural and industrial satire, and how much Peter Weir’s delicate emotional trademarks manage to bleed themselves into the expression of this bizarre premise.

Memoir of a Snail is an absolute triumph, cementing Elliot as a visionary and one of the best in his field.

It’d be easy to label Abiding Nowhere as tranquil and meditative, as it certainly is, but I still see so much of Ming-liang’s earlier passion present in the form of this late-stage mellowness.

Director Jane Schoenbrun impresses with I Saw The TV Glow - a horror flick which is only half-scary but full heartbreaking.

I think whatever qualms I have towards Grand Theft Hamlet’s artificial attempts at a heart-to-heart are outweighed by how organically and hilariously human the majority of the film is.

Whilst applaudable in its attempt to meld lycanthropy with modern-day political concerns, Blackout is a poignant character study hampered by heavy-handed exposition which renders its bark worse than its bite.

Overall it was a great time seeing all these short films, and even if the films themselves weren’t always entertaining, witnessing the audience’s reactions absolutely made up for that.

It’s Raining in the House explores the story of two Belgian teenagers who live in poverty, as they navigate the summer with an absent mother and a proclivity for getting themselves into trouble.

Can truth reveal itself in Perfect Days? Or is it a beautiful simulacrum, contemporary Japan through the gaze of the international film market?

Insightful, hilarious yet emotional, director Ili Baré leads the audience through a surprising journey behind one of the world’s most viewed sports competitions, The Australian Open.