SHORT TAKES ON QUEER SHORTS

In brief, the tricky thing about a short film is that it can be difficult to make it feel fully satisfying. The more engaging ones sometimes seem to end too soon, frustratingly, just when one is starting to feel involved — like eating a delicious appetizer with no main course to follow. Those that meander and never pull us in tend to feel like time-wasting, tediously trivial tidbits. Either way, the viewer may react with a reflexive “Huh?!” or, more articulately, burst into a chorus of the Peggy Lee hit, “Is That All There Is?”

NewFest37, the currently running annual film festival celebrating LGBTQ+ storytelling, goes to great lengths to feature movies of various lengths and styles, including several shorts grouped together. Granted, those that were given grants and garnered awards will be met with higher expectations than unheralded unveilings. But — perhaps especially with shorts — what some folks go head over heels for may be underwhelming head-scratchers for others. When it came to the four NewFest New Voices Filmmaker Grant Showcase selections, for me, most of the shorts came up short. (Your mileage may vary.) See them for free if you’re free Monday, October 14, at Nighthawk Cinema in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, starting at 7:30 p.m., with a discussion period included. Or check the quartet of films at NewFest37 Virtual Streaming through October 21, 2025.

Here are the New Voices film shorts in question; the collective running time is a little under an hour.

Kasbi: Written and directed by Farah Jabir, this two-character English-language short explores a woman’s desire to satisfy sexual curiosity in middle age. The title word kasbi is variously translated as prostitute, adulteress, or skilled artisan. As the 12-minute film begins, we sense the nervousness and self-consciousness of Maryam (Anna Khaja), a Pakistani woman married to a man, longing to fulfill her long-held desire for intimacy with another woman, a situation that instantly engenders sympathy. She meets Aisha (Zina Louhachy), the young sex worker she’s hired for the encounter she hopes will finally allow her to experience lesbian lust. Alas, despite Aisha’s initially patient understanding, Maryam’s religious and cultural conditioning, and her marital situation, make it difficult for her to relax and let go.

Will she go through with it, or will they be through before things get very far? Will they pause and try again? Will there be a tryst? Will there be trust? No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that whether or not they make a physical connection, there’s palpable chemistry between both the characters and the actresses. And whether Maryam resists temptation or Aisha resists the instinct to flee, the unpretentious film avoids judgment and stereotype alike. It’s a human story — unsentimental, unexploitive, and quietly affecting.

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Will You Look at Me (当我望向你的时候) looks at filmmaker Shuli Huang‘s looking back on his life when he goes back home. The 2022 20-minute entry won awards at the prestigious Cannes and Sundance film festivals, but such prizes seem surprising. It’s non-fiction friction, with some listless wistfulness. (Musing that he’s now at the age of a 25-year-old man he once pursued, and a woman who’s renting a place where he’s resided, he wonders if he’s “become” them.) Content-wise, the focus of much of the fuzzy-focused film features the fraught relationship with his traditional Chinese mother who disapproves and despairs of him being gay and choosing a career in the arts. Returning after some years is a return to her closed-minded judgment and avoidance. (The title is a reference to the fact that she avoids eye contact.) Old wounds are opened, but he’s had some good times in his past, too. However, his narration about this-and-that never gets that deep or detailed to be very engaging, and the accompanying vaguely connected visuals that fill the screen can seem like filler or random stock footage. Super 8mm camera work can be shaky.

The speech tone is sometimes oddly dispassionate — oddly at odds with the claimed stronger emotions. We see and hear his mother, busying herself with gardening and avoidance. Then the dam bursts. In an excruciating segment, we hear her wail and weep, plead and pontificate, blaming and declaiming, chastising herself and him, with mea-culpa conviction that she did something unwise to turn him homosexual. She mourns that he used to be such a sweet and docile little boy and she is at a loss to understand and accept him. It’s tough to hear, but is it productive? Cathartic? Voyeuristic? A masochistic torment? Unfortunately, captivating characters, distinguished dialogue, and heartfelt happy endings that can end up as assets when fashioned for fiction aren’t always available for true-life dramas. Without such pluses, the slog will leave some viewers nonplussed. For others, Will You Look at Me may be worth a look.

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Anino brings us the trials and tribulations of a troubled teen, tested via teasing, from director M.G. Evangelista, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stephanie Adams-Santos. Our heroine is Marta (Emerson Basco, in a well-executed, calibrated performance), whose current day of bullying is cued by telltale evidence that she’s menstruating for the first time. But some classmates seem to have it in for her anyway. The synopsis alerts us that she has a crush on another student and that seems to be another girl and some of the bullying is spread around to one girl who’s kinder to Marta. Although not everything is blatant in this short, there’s a mysterious tone and darkness afoot (Anino‘s titular word means “shadow”; kudos to cinematographer Tehillah De Castro).

Teasing and taunting progress, and there’s blood unrelated to Marta’s first period (spotted during the school’s music period). While our protagonist seems to be suffering in silence, the unspoken message is “Don’t mess with Marta.” Shades of elements of the horror classic Carrie? Fair point. Tension and violence inhabit a sometimes seemingly typical tale of schoolmate-baiting and outsider status. Still, despite hints and looks exchanged between the two grandmothers who remark that this is all happening on the anniversary of the death of Marta’s mother, the dramatic ending may surprise and shock. Stay tuned for that.

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Yú Cì (Fish Bones) reminds us that old family ties once untied can be strong and unlikely events can prompt unanticipated changes. In writer/director Kevin Xian Ming Yu‘s leisurely paced story, Asian-American named Bowen comes to help his father who has an injury caused by a poisonous fish bite. Non-binary Bowen’s fashion choices and behavior have caused family disapproval. (He’s admonished for wearing make-up at work because it makes people “uncomfortable.”) When, after a period of being estranged, the young man comes to the fishing spot to meet his dad who almost doesn’t recognize him and claims the awful-looking injury isn’t so awful. Is he fishing for sympathy? He needn’t. Bowen seems ready, willing, and able to aid him and converse and catch up. Dad seems receptive, but it’s all low-key, no ruffled feathers. Perhaps they have more in common than they thought. Not a whole lot more really happens; what plot there is doesn’t thicken much. It’s all pretty calm, despite hints of past problems and the less accepting mom. There are no family flare-ups, nor happy hugs of reconciliation and regret. The short, in English and Mandarin, with English subtitles, is pleasant enough. A reaction might be “If only there were more there there!” Therefore, this modest and quiet release doesn’t scream out as a must-see.

NewFest New Voices Filmmaker Grant Showcase
presented in partnership with Netflix at NewFest37
October 14, 2025, at 7:30: Nighthawk Cinema, 188 Prospect Park in West Brooklyn, with discussion
virtual streaming through October 21, 2025
for all films in NewFest37, visit Newfest

Yú Cì (Fish Bones)