Staff Writer Abigail Curd recaps day two of the Strand Film Festival.
On 26 March, the second event of the Strand Film Festival, curated by KCL film students, was held in the Nash Lecture Theatre. The theme was ‘short film fry up’ – a series of short films, each centred around a particular part of a fry up breakfast. The organisers emphasised the global nature of the films presented, hence their choice to base their theme around fry ups rather than an English breakfast in particular. In the description of the event, they wrote:
Short Film Fry Up [is] a bite-sized selection of intercontinental short-films, each bringing a unique perspective to breakfast and its various roles in our lives.
The films were a mix of animation and live action, fiction and documentary, with varying styles, lengths, and tones. One moment you’re watching an animated musical, the next, a sci-fi romance, but all the movies linked back to the central theme.
Tomatoes (2023, dir. Kei Kanamori) was the first short film shown, a funny, dialogue-less CGI animated short about a talent contest in a world made up entirely of tomatoes (the judge is, amusingly, a sort of gangster tomato). It had a shocking plot twist at the end – no spoilers! The second, Ovo (1994, dir. José Miguel Ribeiro and Pierre Bouchon), was my favourite: a stop motion film about eggs in a pan scared of a spatula. It was funny and dark but absurd, and one of the shorter films in the programme. Red Meat (2024, dir. Eleni Aerts) was another animated film, this time in a sketchy, spooky hand-drawn style. The world is surreal and spooky; the only colours in this film are red, black and white. I loved the way the ‘camera’ moved and tracked the action.
Hash Browns (2022, dir. Cal McLean and Alexandra Nell) was the first live action film, set entirely in a diner. It had snappy editing and lots of dialogue. There was a great plot twist at the end. Toast was a mixture of live action and 2D, a surreal depiction of a morning routine. The voice over once said ‘being punctual just means you had nothing better to do.’ The only documentary in the programme was called Bacon ‘n’ Laces (2022, dir. Stephen Michael Simon), produced by the New Yorker magazine. It’s about the owner of a small New York City diner, a blind man who says he has ‘nothing to complain about’, and his son, a smart and hardworking teenager. They share a love of collecting trainers. The short is, like the best documentary shorts, a glimpse into the life of an interesting but normal person.
King Sausage (2022, dir. Mascha Halberstad) was a stop-motion musical about a competition between two sausage makers in a small Dutch town as well as a love story. The music was pop (very Eurovision-y). The animation was charming. At one point, the sausages come to life to sing the backing vocals of one of the songs. The audience loved this one the most, cheering and laughing as the story unfolded, applauding loudly at the end. Finally, the programme closed with You Are Not Part of the Cake (2025, dir. Ting-Jui Chen), a hand drawn 2D animated short about food, consumption, identity and family. There was absurd imagery and elements of body horror. I loved the way the characters move, their bodies stretching and changing size, using the medium perfectly.
In short, the evening was a great mixture of animation and live action, of fiction and documentary, and of different tones. The films were all great shorts, utilising plot twists and the sort of imagery you wouldn’t see in a big-budget film. But it was even better to watch them with an enthusiastic audience who were clearly loving the films while watching them together.
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