Any good collection of short films will present audiences with variety, diversity, and (hopefully) quality. The 2022 deadCenter Film Festival delivered on all three fronts with its Oklahoma-made short films slate, sporting a roster so plentiful the collection had to be broken into two parts. Volumes 1 and 2 both debuted Friday, June 10th, the second day of the festival, and screened at various times after that. Those that caught one or both volumes enjoyed stories from “up-and-coming homegrown talent,” as deadCenter’s website puts it, featuring young voices making their filmmaking debuts, as well as more seasoned artists offering their latest works. Both short blocks highlighted numerous films made by Indigenous and Black writers/directors as well, altogether giving viewers narratives from a wealth of unique perspectives.
Vol. 1 of the Oklahoma-made short films kicked off with Lucky, a crafty short from singer/songwriter Sean C. Johnson, his first foray into film. It explores the age-old conundrum of pursuing love and creativity at the same time, debating whether someone can be both romantically and artistically happy at the same time. While plenty of films have grappled with this question before, Johnson’s take is decidedly fresh, with a twist ending that is genuinely surprising and wholly heartbreaking.
Restoring Néške’emāne directly followed Lucky. Directed and produced by Loren Waters, the film is a quick history lesson on the U.S. boarding schools that sought to “kill the Indian [and] save the man” by assimilating young Native children into American white culture. But it is also a gaze toward the future, as environmentalist Damon Dunbar envisions revitalizing one of these now-decrepit institutions – Oklahoma’s Concho Indian School – into a museum dedicated to all that was lost and all that can be gained by learning about our past. Beautifully shot by Nick Buttram, Jeremy Charles, Matt Leach, and John Carpenter, Restoring Néške’emāne leaves its viewers both horrified and hopeful.
Appearing later in Vol. 1, Old House New Home (winner of the deadCenter’s Best Okie Short Film award selected by the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle) continues the theme of restoration through the story of Danny Boy O’Connor, formerly of the ‘90s group House Of Pain and a fan of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders, an adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel of the same name. On a visit to Tulsa from California, O’Connor discovered the house used as the Curtis brothers’ home in the film, purchased it, and began the process of transforming the falling-down abode into a museum dedicated to both the book and movie – and transforming himself in the process as well.
Not to be outdone by its predecessor, Vol. 2 of the Oklahoma-made short films comes out of the gate strong with It Mimics, written and directed by filmmaking duo Cary Thomas Cody and Orrin Ponkilla AKA The Skull Crawlers. The film centers around a brother and sister who get sidelined by car trouble next to an old bridge, where a certain titular creature may or may not be waiting. Creepy and atmospheric, It Mimics feels much longer than its six-minute and change run time in the best way possible, introducing the audience to likable and well-fleshed out characters before getting straight to the scares, the best kind of short and spooky tale.
Switching gears from horror to documentary, the poetic ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught) takes viewers on a visual journey through the lush greenery and gentle waters found in Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma and the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina. Director Brit Hensel intercuts these serene shots with footage of a man chopping down a tree in the woods, giving thanks to the tree for its sacrifice, and hand-carving a mask from a piece of the tree. The narrator, elder and first language speaker Tom Belt, explains that no one actually “creates” anything, because everything we make requires materials culled from other sources. This idea feeds into the overarching theme of reciprocity, fitting of course, given that the film is part of a larger series created for the Reciprocity Project, an Indigenous organization that “reframes our relationships to the Earth, other living beings, and one another,” according to their website. Oklahoma’s own Sterlin Harjo perhaps sums up ᎤᏕᏲᏅ perfectly: “Brit’s film is a beautiful meditation of sound and space, expressing her people’s reciprocal relationship to the natural worlds that they exist in.”
Last in Vol. 2’s lineup, but certainly not least, 16-year-old director Ella Janes brings the Oklahoma-made short films block to a close with The First 280 Honest Words Of My Life. It concerns a high school student crafting an entry essay for a summer writing program, requiring the author to mention a color, a fruit, and the rain somewhere in the prompt. Instead of a fictional story involving these items, the girl instead dedicates the piece to self-reflection and a deconstruction of the very concept of honesty. Shot on what appears to be an 8mm-style app, complete with retro grain, Janes fills her frame with old typewriters, vintage furniture, and pages from books. Combined with the narrator’s quasi-deadpan delivery, every inch of this film exudes a distinctly erudite charm and wit. Janes could very well be the love child of Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson, and her film constituted quite a splendid end to the Okie Shorts collection.
Audiences who missed both volumes of films should definitely seek out the works highlighted here, as well as every entry to the collection. There are numerous surprises and delights to be found in each, many of which can still be caught on the deadCenter Virtual Festival portal until the end of this week.
