Ternura

"I was choreographing the camera live, in the moment — there was no pre-built shot list to fall back on."

Six dancers, one hour, a single overhead light: Rachel McDonald's wordless dance short 'Ternura', choreographed by Paulina Pulido, orchestrates a transfeminist argument from Mexico City into a striking wordless dance short arguing entirely through movement for tenderness as resistance.

Born To Hustle

"The music isn't underscore, it's architecture — relentlessly catapulting viewers from one moment to the next."

Melbourne editor-turned-director Grace Anna Cardona breaks down her debut documentary 'Born To Hustle', a portrait of Heart of Bone jeweller Emma Addams. With twenty-one tracks locked before a single frame was assembled, fifty cuts in the opening minute and all of it built to hold the attention of viewers who usually zone out, it's a film cut at the speed its subject actually thinks.

K-9INE!

"It captures a lot of the themes I’m drawn to as a filmmaker: power, masculinity, performance, domesticity, humour and the absurdity of everyday life."

Elliott Power both trusts the audience while exploiting their expectations with his genre-traversing debut narrative short ‘K-9INE!' that is as much about one man's desperate need for human connection as it is another's attempts to avoid it. He talks to DN about the real-life inspiration behind the film, the intentional element that came with shooting on 35mm film and his use of production design to build character and reward repeated viewings.

Babyface

"I love seeing the absurdity in everything we do. It’s been helpful to translate this slight disconnect into my films because I think it’s given them a bittersweet quality that feels much more authentic to me."

Animator Sacha Beeley joins us on DN to discuss how being an "extreme daydreamer" helps shape her work, and being labelled a "little freak" by fellow animator Sophie Koko led her to embrace the weirdness in her latest short film, 'Babyface'.