Dark Night Bright Stars

From French school EMCA comes this notable graduation short by Séléna Picque, which features a highly psychological narrative with supernatural elements.

Using traditional iconography from the SciFi genre, the short combines two main sequences (one of them returns as a flashback) mixed through editing. The short manages to build and maintain a very high level of tension using supernatural elements, internal (psychological) shots, off-screen space, shadows, sound, surprise and visual rhythm.

Highlights of the short include its sound design, strong use of extreme close-ups combined with the psychological narrative, the way it builds and maintains conflict, the use of a nice camera pan to depict passage of time, the combination of surprise and visual rhythm and the ambivalence of subjectivity in narration.