JUNE 17, 2025
One method of making a name for yourself is to try and think a movie about poverty, where the process is not that hard because the cases are numerous in today’s world and the success is guaranteed. This can be put in the same category with movies about cancer or other diseases, or movies raising awareness of different causes (racism or sexism). Most of the times, these movies are terrible and we are not referring only at the case but even at the technical aspects. One can easily see they were made only to add achievements to a certain CV. Noel Harris is not like that, for sure! In 'Touch' he took the stereotype we presented above and smashed it, creating one of the most powerful and emotional shorts we’ve seen in our festival so far.
For a single mother living in poverty with two kids... life is harsh. When she gets a chance to earn some money she needs someone to keep an eye on her kids but it seems impossible for her. Salvation came from where she least expected- her brother.
Taking a closer look at the cinematography, there is hardly something we can complain about. The camera movement is good, the acting is neat and the lightning is perfectly balanced. The emotional side is very well emphasized by the original score. Shorts like this one deserve special recognition for the score, because it is very difficult to put together a story and a score and match them to be the same calibre.
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What makes 'Touch' an amazing short is the unexpected. After the first five minutes of the film you don’t know what to expect, there are so many things rushing into the viewers' minds, being almost impossible to predict what is going to happen. Eventually, we came to a conclusion that left us with our mouth opened. Honestly, a great round of applause for Harris for this short and for the story!
Review written by Vlad A.G