Back at it again for the second week of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. If you have not checked out the first part of my MSPIFF coverage or some of my other festival coverage, I encourage you to do so. I wound up taking a couple of nights off to balance out some late night double features. Moving forward, I'm only addressing the days I was in attendance.
Day 7
Shorts 5: Chills
I used to have very little interest in live-action shorts but have really come around on the format in the last year or two. I wanted to fit in some during this festival and the Chills program seemed like the best bet for me. I did notice that Blossom Needs a Ride Home played with a different group of films and I caught that one at MidWest Weird Fest. It gets a recommendation from me if you have the chance to catch it.
Unfortunately, many of these films do not currently have Letterboxd entries so I'm linking to whatever seemed the most relevant. One thing I'll mention up front is that these films all looked terrific. Lower budget shorts (and features) can sometimes be rendered with a noticeably flat photography and that wasn't an issue with these at all.
Goodnight My Demons - Cute and moderately spooky. The black & white presentation helps lend it a 50s creature feature vibe. 2.5/5 Stars
Follower - A Korean language film that I believe is meant as a cautionary tale about social media. Unfortunately I don't think the material really justifies the sexual assault content it employs and comes off as superficial and gross. 1.5/5 Stars
Mad Island - A story of ghosts and memory set on the shores of Lake Superior. Visually and sonically compelling with some incredible footage of the frozen lake. Lily Rains' performance really carried this one over the top for me as she manages humor with an edge of weirdness to great effect. 3.5/5 Stars
Baroque - Dark and atmospheric with direct visual nods to Caravaggio and other artists of the period. Baroque is a modern story of a young artist who is struggling to get support from the older, more established artist who has hired her as a model. Her dreams are haunted by a different self in a past era who does assert herself with bloody consequences. Filmmaker Shelby Dillon creates a wonderful look and color palette for this and uses some terrific practical effects to maintain the dreamy surrealism. 3/5 Stars
Strive - This short film from Finland is really quite ambitious in its scope and execution. A sci-fi genre tone piece about a vaguely dystopian cyberpunk near-future where most people live quiet lives in virtual reality and some rebel street kids race cars against automated freight trucks. There's certainly some digital effects work at play here, but I was rather taken with some practical sequences and location work which lends a tangible gravity to the whole thing. The plot is simplistic, but this is more of a piece around mood than narrative. 3/5 Stars
The Boom - A Minneapolis made film from Ajuawak Kapashesit that tackles local phenomenon, The Longfellow Boom, and reimagines the source of the mysterious sound as a kind of ancestral call. Boom is filled with terrific nighttime locations across Minneapolis and the performances charm with a humorous touch. It also makes for an interesting bridge between urban legend and folktale in its presentation. I liked this a lot. 3.5/5 Stars
Superconcious - Closing out the program was Christianne Hedtke's conspiratorially toned short tackling remote viewing, shadowy government programs, face blindness, mental health, and grief. Primarily the story of Cybil G. (Nat Boltt) and her handler Harvey T. (Matt Olsen) who embark on a series of psychic experiments in an idyllic wooded location in 1973. There are sinister and tragic elements lurking at the edges of Superconcious but the overall mood is more one of mystery fueled by the unusual phenomena that launched television programs and best selling paperbacks during the 70s and 80s. Well acted and makes great use of the location, Hedtke's film is genuinely evocative of the era without ever feeling overly nostalgic or derivative. Imagine a more thoughtful, melancholy episode of X-Files and this is what you might get. 4/5 Stars
3.5/5 Stars (maybe 4, I want to watch it again)
Day 9
Power Ballad (2026) - The latest from Irish director John Carney, Ballad stars Paul Rudd as a former rocker turned wedding singer who bonds with a former boy band star (Nick Jonas) over a night of drinking and jamming. I was granted a ticket for this from the studio before I received my press pass and they've asked that we not review it until closer to release. I'll say this; there's a lot of music in Power Ballad so if you like what you hear in the trailer, that bodes well for your enjoyment of the film. If you're not feeling it, than this might be a long watch.
Obsession (2025) - Comedian and filmmaker Curry Barker is a name I've been hearing lately, but this was the first of his films I've seen. Barker blends a 80s horror sensibility with uncanny imagery and off-kilter humor in a tale of young love gone horribly, horribly wrong. The film opens with a retro style commercial for the "One Wish Willow" which is the supernatural novelty at the heart of the film. Michael Johnston plays Baron (Bear) the soft-spoken member of a group of friends who pines for Nikki (Inde Navarrette) but lacks the confidence to tell her how he feels. Bear stumbles on the One Wish Willow while looking for a gift for Nikki and after he once again fails to speak up, he activates the wish by snapping the toy in half. Bear wishes that Nikki would love him more than "anyone else in the world" and she immediately turns her attention to him and also starts acting very strangely. While Bear does temporarily overlook Nikki's odder moments so he can maintain their "relationship", things begin to take darker and more extreme turns as Nikki's devotion to him grows a sinister edge. It's a classic monkey's paw set up and there's nothing spectacular about the writing on display. At times, it felt as though Obsession was a short film stretched to meet the length of a feature. Bear comes off as largely insufferable and fails to meet the lowest bars of integrity, making it a wonder that he has even platonic friendships with anyone. However, where Barker eventually won me over is in his presentation and commitment to utter mayhem as the film picks up steam. Navarette doesn't have much in the way of interior character to express but she's phenomenal in her performance of maniacal fixation turned to violent insanity. Nikki has haunting breaks of awareness peppered throughout the film that add a profound layer of ick to the conceit. While the plot and characters didn't distinguish themselves, Barker's comedic chops are still in evidence and the film has some very funny moments. Ultimately, I had a good time with this; it's a handsomely shot film, the young actors are all good with Navarette being really excellent, Andy Richter has a small role, and the gore and madness towards the end worked for me in ways that some of the "spookiness" did not. I'll definitely keep an eye out for more from Barker.
3/5 Stars
Day 11
The Blue Trail (2025) - Effortlessly charming, wryly funny, and occasionally lyrical semi-fable about an alternate world in which the Brazilian government has created a "colony" where seniors are forcibly relocated after a certain age to remove them from them from society and the workforce. Denise Weinberg leads as the resourceful and stubborn Tereza who, upon learning that her relocation is imminent, strikes out to experience more life before the "wrinkle wagon" comes for her. Her initial desire is to fly in a plane, but because she can no longer make travel plans without the consent of her daughter (legal guardianship of seniors also transfers when they reach colony age) Tereza is forced to find clandestine transport through a network of underground cash deals. While on a river trip through the Amazon, she's introduced to the psychoactive and possibly clairvoyant effects of the blue drool snail. Tereza's plane voyage is derailed when the money she gives to a man to fix his ultralight goes to booze and gambling instead. Striking out on her own, she's eventually taken by the authorities and sent in for "processing" before colonization. The film then becomes a prison break movie and Tereza is again on the lam where she finds a new friend and a potential path to her freedom. Blue Trail is exactly the kind of film I would expect to find at MSPIFF and is, in some ways, an clear crowd-pleaser aimed at the core audience. I do think filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro still manages to engage meaningfully with thorny issues even if done with a largely gentle touch. I found it all incredibly well done, Weinberg is a delight, and both my wife and I left the screening buzzing. The final act does go far more surreal than I anticipated and seems to deliver the message to seniors and anyone feeling trapped by their circumstances that drugs, crime, and wild chances are all fair methods when you need to break free.
Hokum (2026) - Damian McCarthy made some waves a couple of years ago with his well received horror film, Oddity, and is back with a new one featuring Adam Scott. Scott plays author Ohm Bauman who travels to Ireland to scatter his parents ashes and attempt to finish the latest installment of his best-selling "Conquistador Trilogy." Bauman clashes with nearly everyone he meets at the inn where he is staying and largely scoffs at rumors that the honeymoon suite is haunted by a witch. However, after being saved by a woman working at the inn, Bauman becomes invested in her mysterious disappearance and eventually the lore behind the witch. I confess I struggled to get invested in either they mystery or the supernatural elements in Hokum and found the whole affair largely dull. Bauman is clearly troubled but also acts like an absolute ass making him a complicated protagonist to rally behind. I'm relatively immune to jump scares and McCarthy hits them with steady regularity rendering what could be atmospheric dread into a demo reel of fright gags. It's a fine looking production and Scott follows the assignment gamely, I just couldn't hang onto anything for the duration of the film. Other people seem to view this far more favorably than myself so it could have been the night.
2/5 Stars
Day 12
Mothertongue (2025) - Zhang Lu's latest film about language, family, regional affiliation and how that all influences personal concepts of identity. Bai Baihe plays Fang Chunshu, a woman who becomes disillusioned with professional acting in Beijing and decides to return to her hometown of Chengdu. Even though Chunshu's mother is still living in Chengdu, her initial efforts after arriving are to reconnect with her childhood acting teacher; the surrogate mother-figure that influenced her so deeply. Chunshu discovers that her teacher is now suffering from Alzheimer's but she has interludes of lucidity where she does remember their time together. Chunshu also befriends her mentor's son, Dong, and the two of them spend much of the film wandering through the evolving Chengdu cityscape. I'm not terribly familiar with Zhang Lu's previous work, but glancing through his filmography it seems like reunion, homecoming, and reconciliation with the past are some of his regular thematic hallmarks. Mothertongue is no exception and also features a significant thread around Chinese regional dialects and cultural identities. It's a gorgeous movie and I was quite happy to let scenes of Chengdu's various neighborhoods wash over me. It does meander to the point that the narrative pull is diminished, but there are some genuinely fantastic moments leading up to that. Mothertongue is a surprisingly hard-drinking movie and essentially anytime the characters gather for a meal; funny, awkward, and moving performances are on display.
3/5 Stars
Romería (2025) - Set in 2004 along the Atlantic Coast of Spain, writer/director Carla Simón presents the story of a young woman attempting to reconnect with the family of her birthfather. Newcomer Llúcia Garcia plays Marina, a young woman who was adopted after both of her parents died from AIDS in the fallout of Spain's 80s heroin scene. Marina travels to Vigo, not only to meet her extended family and learn about her parents, but to correct a public record that doesn't acknowledge her existence so that she can properly apply for educational grants. Marina's reception in Vigo ranges from warm to antagonistic, but even the more welcoming family members remain guarded around the specifics of her father's final days. Even in the early 00s misconceptions and stigma around AIDS persisted and it's clear that Marina's paternal grandparents intentionally tried to bury the past along with their son. Romería is broken into discreet chapters and filled with lovely coastal scenery captured with fragments of video footage interwoven with the more conventionally shot sequences. Simón takes a magical realist approach to the penultimate chapter that allows Marina to experience a recreation of Vigo in the 1980s and the carefree life her parents led before addiction and death caught up to them. There's an incredible nightclub scene that transforms into a dance number before becoming a chilling allegory for the lives lost at the height of the epidemic. This flashback in time contains some fantastic needle drops including Lole and Manuel's Tu Mirá (undoubtedly familiar to the Kill Bill fans out there) and Bailaré sobre tu tumba from Vigo-based punks Siniestro Total. The retro vibe, drug content, and use of music rendered the sequence like a miniature Quniqui film though not quite as explicitly hopeless as those movies can be. I did appreciate the uncomfortable family drama friction that encompasses most of Simón's film and Garcia is clearly a talent able to express subtle mood shifts with her expression and body language. I confess that the trip back in time was the part that really stuck with me, though.
3.5/5 Stars
Check out some Siniestro Total!
Blue Heron (2025) - Reconciliation of familial past was certainly the theme for Day 12 and Sophy Romvari's feature debut made for the perfect finale to a childhood trauma triple feature. Romvari recreates a loosely autobiographical story of a Hungarian immigrant family that moves to Vancouver Island sometime in the late 1990s. The story is framed around 8 year old Sasha (Eylul Guven) but it's her eldest brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) and his increasingly hostile and fragile mental state that dominates the central conflict. While not officially diagnosed, Jeremy is experiencing something resembling Oppositional Defiance Disorder and his acting out is shifting from unruly and anti-social to physically threatening. Jeremy's parents, having exhausted various avenues of child therapy, turn to social services who give them an extreme option that's both heartbreaking and possibly their final recourse. Romvari then makes a formally daring decision to move the film decades ahead in time where an adult filmmaker Sasha is working on a project not dissimilar from the very film being watched. Amy Zimmer plays the mature Sasha and serves, to some degree, as a stand-in for Romvari herself trying to make sense of a difficult family history via cinematic storytelling. The two timelines collide allowing Romvari-Sasha to go back in time and interrogate her own parents and history around Jeremy's troubling and erratic behavior. Romvari's take on storytelling structure and blending fictional with documentary elements is a genuine breath of fresh air regarding cinematic form. The first section of the film faithfully builds a hazy nostalgia for a specific time and place (even if it's one you haven't experienced). Sasha's father is shown to be an avid photographer and home-video enthusiast so the film is layered with authentic feeling (though fictional) documents of a home life that was undoubtedly turbulent but also marked with moments of grace and joy. The introduction of modern elements allow for a more frank discussion of changing attitudes towards child psychology and how social work succeeds and fails in aiding families. I can't say I was as engaged for the latter part, but I applaud the ingenuity and do find this a heartfelt tribute to a family and a brother that struggled to find their way.
3.5/4 Stars
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