A daughter and a mother go for a hike, while another mother asks for a child, consequences be damned. The fourth block of 2024’s Shorts Not Pants festival was about family and I’m seeing a similar theme here. So fine, I’ll pick another arbitrary theme and say that this is about adventures that different people embark on. Let’s begin, and the first short I’m writing about feels human even in a short without a human protagonist.

The block starts with an explosive short, Matteo Burani’s Playing God, again, with a human as a side character. This animation short’s human character appears through fingers, inspecting a clay humanoid sculpture that he created just then and there. What he doesn’t know – I’m assuming it’s a he – is that the sculpture has emotions and a life. The storytelling is cryptic after the human leaves but viewers, presumably, will feel whatever the sculpture is feeling.

Angélica María Torres Tamayo‘s Pirsas is about the hike that I mentioned above, about Tamayo and her mother exploring a mountain in Colombia. They embark on this trip, taking on the natural vistas but there’s a context to this. She narrates an accident that took the life of her young brother, a boy she lost to time. Her narration covers the testament of the trip’s only survivor, and the documentary short plays with these narrative levels. The short also features Tamayo and her mother’s discussions about what the loss means to both of them. Shorts like this normally go inward but the discussions that Tamayo and her mother have show a beautiful altruism.

Edith Jorisch’s Mothers and Monsters is the block’s next short, which is a short that feels wild despite its location. Well, maybe that’s that, since the dwellings of modern suburban housewives may just be the freakiest of them all. The housewives here have the strangest baby shower, where they get babies out of heads of cabbage or lettuce. Everyone, except for the dinner party’s host (Mylène Mackay), so they demand a baby for her which is a hard ask. Viewers then see this short’s version of where babies come from – dark, lifelike tunnels that are underneath people’s homes. I’ve seen enough shorts like this but a woman’s spin to a David Lynch homage gets a conditional pass.

Alessandro Stigliano’s Cookies or Kakor is next, about a programmer who is unappreciated in his vague office startup job. He has a baby at home as well as a girlboss who bullies him every chance she gets. His way of being in his workplace’s good graces is to bake them pastries, or maybe this is for revenge. This is basically the 21st century version of The Help but it’s subversive enough to get its fans.

Miserable Miracle from Ryo Orikase is next, an adaptation of a book bearing the same title from Henri Michaux. Coleridge and Plath reference abound in an animation short that’s honest about Michaux’s misogyny even if yes, I’m judging. The short’s premise is basically ‘this is what a book is like’ but it feels like a balm nonetheless.

Cross My Heart And Hope To Die from Filipino director Sam Manacasa is the seventh block’s last short film. Here, Jorrybell Agoto plays a young office worker who catches feelings for a man constantly calling her work phone. A part of me asks where it’s going but the third act makes up for the slack in narrative. The art direction and its realism also makes for a good way to end this huge block of shorts.

Find out how to watch this year’s Shorts That Are Not Pants Film Festival through this little link.