“intimations of genius”
“a masterpiece”
“a haunting nightmare”
“the creepy atmosphere and acute details of a Stanley Kubrick or a David Cronenberg.”
The Boston Phoenix
Short and bittersweet
The Film Festival in brief
by Peter Keough
“…For intimations of genius, there’s Pablo Proenza’s superbly accomplished “ViDi.” [His] 33-minute masterpiece is a haunting nightmare.
We’re in the increasingly popular not-too-distant-future, and telecommunications, computers, and video have virtually supplanted real experience. College student Ethan (Lisandro Perez, who looks like a young Orson Welles in shock) keeps in touch with his girlfriend Aisha (Leisa Bolles) via videophone in his stark, spotless apartment. After nearly being carjacked (while talking to Aisha on his car videophone, much to her delight), he withdraws even further into a world of futuristic technological ennui that Proenza re-creates with the creepy atmosphere and acute details of a Stanley Kubrick or a David Cronenberg.
Like many feature films this year, shorts seem preoccupied with the millennium — though not many handle the Apocalypse with the grace of Proenza…”