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Fringe Online 2021

Shark Week

Milk Presents

Genre: Fringe Film, LGBTQ

Venue: Home, Manchester, Homemakers

Festival:


Low Down

Finn is taking a bath and prepares for the event through his usual ablutions. They are unaware that lurking under the bubbles is a predator which signifies the troubles with which they have to deal. Once in the bath they go under the water and then awake to the reality to recognize their dream which is also a very real part of their experience.

Review

If anyone had suggested that I was going to be fully engaged and indeed enjoy a film about a man dealing with his period, then I would have scoffed and been skeptical. But the joy of this 7-minute piece does come from the approach taken by the filmmakers. This has, for me, normalized the process because it refuses to explain or compromise. It uses humour and it engages with wit. It makes it accessible and assured in its telling with the confidence to make me want to know more and support everything in its telling. I was quite simply captured.

Leo Skilbeck’s idea is a beautiful one and the irony of having someone named Finn being attacked by a shark is part of its charm. The camera work is a little shaky and the editing could be slicker, but that at times adds to the effect. The use of what looks like a rubber shark does not diminish the film, because once we realised that the shark in Jaws was not real, it did not make us want to go into the water more confidently afterwards…

Our single actor, Felix Mufti, is an affecting narrator. We do get to hear the wonderful cadences of his Scouse tones in a phone call which is also subtitled. The use of a soundscape is subtle but again is additional to the effect coming across the screen.

The beauty of this short film is that the confidence that emits is to show us the facet of the transgender debate without the suffocating furore that can often accompany it. This is presented with due self-effacing joy and compassion allowing me, who is not Trans, and is that bit older, to consider, begin to understand and support rather than question. Go have a wee look and support the community and the artists!

Published

Show Website

Shark Week