Repetition is, theoretically, the most boring thing a filmmaker can present to their viewers. But somehow, most of the filmmakers during the second shorts programme find something profound in repetition. The theme in the programme this time is Ride the Wave. One expects these shorts to capture movement, which one of the shorts capture but the rest capture and deconstruct stasis. I liked the first Wavelengths shorts programme better but I enjoyed most of the shorts, so let’s begin this piece.

I’m sad to report that I didn’t like the first short, Beatrice Gibson and Nick Gordon’s Someplace in Your Mouth. It quickly juxtaposes quasi-legal race car drivers in Palermo, Italy with pages of a poem by American poet Magdalena Zurawski. I like the neon cinematography but the references are too esoteric – this is Wavelengths but make the films quasi relatable.

Next up is Adrift Potentials where Leonardo Pirondi pieces together fragments of a film that someone else left unfinished. That someone else is a fellow experimental Brazilian filmmaker who exiled himself from his home country during a military dictatorship. The clips, then, have shots of controlled nature, of fences, of someone’s home and, strangely enough, an old map of Canada. A comment on exile, a state of mind people take even if they’re theoretically free from their oppressors far away.

The next short is Chris Kennedy’s Go Between, which are basically window shots of a bridge in Australia but with a twist. What makes this otherwise black and white mundane film interesting is that it covers that view with blinds. An obvious comment on the subjectivity of cinema even from a white male standpoint from literally a high vantage point. Also, at the risk of sounding like Michelle Visage on Drag Race, this short is the right amount of stupid.

The last short is The Sojourn from Tiffany Sia, a short with a beginning, end (duh), and a meaty middle. It starts with an interview with Dragon Inn star Shih Chun and tries to return to that film’s onsite locations. Before they get to the landscapes, they visit an exhibit of Chinese landscape art on parchment, which glues the short. It eventually gets to the real life version of the landscapes we see on film and on other art forms. Film works pretty much this way – if beautiful actors aren’t acting on location they do on a back lot somewhere.

The costumes, props, and sets eventually disintegrate and the actors die, but on location shots feel like those places last forever. They don’t though, and sure, art exists to make things perpetual, but both the subject and its reproduction disappear. Why do we make art them, why am I writing, why do people go on nature hikes or long drives? The short ends depicting a school for Indigenous culture in Taiwan, reminiscent of the people walking an ever changing earth. Could the short make its point without make it long – sure, but its length makes its point sink much deeper.