Comments on: And I Refuse To Forget

And I Refuse To Forget

jbickers — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:38:28 -0800

the three-minute sci-fi thriller from 21-year-old director Nuru Rimington-Mkali, has won the grand prize in the Filmaka feature film competition. Judges include Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Neil Labute and many others. For his efforts, Rimington-Mkali wins the director's chair of his first feature film, to be produced by Filmaka. (Lots of other great stuff on Filmaka, too.)

By: Science!

Science! — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:56:58 -0800

Wow. At first I thought it was going to me a lame rip off of Memento, but it wasn't even close. It goes in a totally different direction. That's an interesting premise, and pretty good film. I would love to read a short story or short novel expanding on this idea, it could be awesome. Thanks for pointing out Filmaka, that's where I'll be wasting today.

By: cashman

cashman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:17:52 -0800

A little bit Memento, a little bit Equilibrium, pretty decent. I'm going to watch that again later.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:36:22 -0800

Shows what you can do with no budget but a bit of invention... I actually wanted it to be longer which is always a good sign.

By: leibniz

leibniz — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:44:46 -0800

Nice. the narration shouldn't be whispered though.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:45:06 -0800

My real name is Andy Lippman And I must speak entirely in a whisper Snark aside, that was kinda cool. Hard to do any sort of memory sci-fi without recalling Memento or Johnny Mnemonic. But still good.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:03:07 -0800

Enjoyed that. Thanks.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:05:55 -0800

Hard to do any sort of memory sci-fi without recalling Memento or Johnny Mnemonic. There's a bizarre meta-irony to how hard I have tried to forget ever seeing Johnny Mnemonic.

By: RakDaddy

RakDaddy — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:14:49 -0800

Great little film. Hope the feature budget means he doesn't have go to Budget Hoarse Narration Casting next time.

By: chimaera

chimaera — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:31:00 -0800

That was pretty impressive. The dialog itself makes for a decent short story, and the way it was put to film only showed a couple slight mishandlings (the narration I think could've been a little better delivered).

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:01:18 -0800

I thought it was interesting. The whispering did, I think, get a bit old after a while, but otherwise I can't find anything to fault.

By: Hugonaut

Hugonaut — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:15:07 -0800

Cool site. It'll be interesting to see how he handles the sensory connections in the feature film. Constant flashes could easily lead to tedious overkill. And I would leave out the hair smelling. No matter how sensuously done I'd be creeped out to wake up to someone smelling my hair.

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:53:23 -0800

*smells Hugonaut's hair*

By: Hugonaut

Hugonaut — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:06:31 -0800

ewwwwwww...see, still creepy.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:58:57 -0800

And I would leave out the hair smelling. No matter how sensuously done I'd be creeped out to wake up to someone smelling my hair. What appeared to be knicker-sniffing through me out of the thing for a moment with a WTF!

By: grounded

grounded — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:04:40 -0800

More like La Jetee narrated by the guy from Last Year at Marienbad. Wish I liked it more. The narration never added up to much except and the visuals were less than compelling. As for the feature, I'm not sure what it would look like, the idea in the short is too thin to sustain and I sure as heck don't want to watch the bald dude in darkened solitary for more than a couple of seconds. (Actually, I don't want to watch him in semi-darkened, semi-solitariness, semi-clothed with his lady friend either.)

By: jbickers

jbickers — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:13:58 -0800

Unless I overlooked something, it doesn't necessarily say that his feature debut will be this story - just that this story won him the deal to make his first film, whatever it may be.

By: Joey Bagels

Joey Bagels — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:54:37 -0800

Is it my imagination, or is everything at Filmaka posted in the wrong aspect ratio? It looks like they've taken 16x9 images letterboxed in a 4x3 frame, and then "squished" that 4x3 frame into a 16x9 aspect ratio, which makes everyone look a little shorter and fatter than they should. (It does the protagonist of "And I Refuse To Forget" no favors.) As far as the film goes, it's kind of awesome given the constraints (three minutes long, MiniDV photography) but didn't exactly rock my socks in the grand scheme. The voiceover was more compelling than the images — might have gotten more mileage if it were told entirely in still images, but I suppose then its La Jetée lineage would be to explicit.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:56:46 -0800

It's actually part of the text of the story, Joey Bagels: in the future, everyone is fatter and the fashion in type has drifted toward the squattish.

By: quin

quin — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:52:10 -0800

...after sex she smells a bit of a CIA financed military coup in Latin America Henceforth, I'm going to use this phrase to describe my wife when talking to strangers. Cool video.

By: Unicorn on the cob

Unicorn on the cob — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:18:17 -0800

Interesting idea... but no short film for me can surpass The Silent City.

By: Zack_Replica

Zack_Replica — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:52:11 -0800

I'd never seen that before Uotc, thanks for the link. Definitely my new favourite.

By: LostZombies

LostZombies — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:00:46 -0800

Very Cool!

By: adamdschneider

adamdschneider — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:25:28 -0800

The expiration date on this thread has come and gone, but while Silent City was undoubtedly cool, Demon (found via Ruairi Robinson's website) gets my vote for its sheer short film creepiness.

By: Unicorn on the cob

Unicorn on the cob — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:20:01 -0800

Adamdschneider, that was SUPER disturbing... thanks.