Ffresh Festival Part 5: Undergraduate Fiction

Right: on with the Ffresh round-up! Undergraduate fiction was certainly the most mixed of all the categories, in terms of quality and also subject matter. It seems the graduates knew what they were doing a little more!

Heel Toe  - Alison Scarff - Swansea Met University
A quirky little film about a man with an addiction to women's shoes and his wife learning to adapt. Odd, as you'd expect, but quite joyful and fun to watch.

Between Viewings - Raphael Biss, Daniel Cripps, Vaia Ikonomou, Craig Lewis, Ashleigh Whitfield & Joseph Gidley - Newport Film School
One of my favourite shorts of the festival, this was an uplifting tale of an estate agent who re-evaluates his life when he has to sell his family home. Although it's not professional quality technically, it's beautifully written and really made me smile. The main character also had heaps of charisma - as you'd expect from an estate agent - which really made the film.

Channel 7 The News Resolution - Adam Elliot - Aberystwyth UniversityThis film was a bit of everything - a send-up of the news, rants about modern politics, scenes at an AA meeting. While it was praised by the judges, I thought it was just a mess and it seemed to think it was a lot cleverer than it was.

Coming Out - Milo Howitt, Jon Brooks, Ashley Hancock & Chris Hoskins - University Of Glamorgan

The judges were impressed by the way the film-makers created a dark and claustrophobic atmosphere, but I think it just freaked people out, judging by the muted applause and bewildered expressions of the audience after the film. That's to say, they created the mood well but we weren't really convinced by the reason for it.