Like a sprinter in a marathon, this exhibition of short films gets off to a strong start but can’t last the distance
‘What is the future of … film?’ Given a small budget, graduating MFA artists attempt to answer this ‘provocation’ by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in a yearly festival, Emergence.
Emergence 2025 boasts a short film triple bill – Composting, Upcycled and NIGHTSHIFT – that takes you on a journey through modern-day phenomena, ancient monsters, and futuristic multidimensions. Spanning thirty minutes altogether, solid filmmaking frames a blend of sharp and uneven storytelling.
Composting is about a true crime podcaster searching for her missing brother in the middle of ‘the Scottish woods.’ Stumbling into the path of an avid listener, she finds all the wrong answers. Upcycled is about a vigilante who, in the same woods, stumbles into the path of a predator – and her latest knitting project. These films share more than just the setting; they are two parts of a whole, Never Hike Alone.
Despite that, they’re distinct films. Composting is a slick horror, with moody lighting capturing a darkness the podcaster can’t escape from, her superfan’s shadow looming large. In contrast, Upcycled evokes something colder, with detached podcast voiceovers the only company said superfan keeps. You feel the horror of being too close in Composting, and the horror of isolation in Upcycled.
Never Hike Alone tells a stronger story when viewed together, though: Composting provides intrigue while Upcycled adds depth. As a single tale, you grapple with parasocial relationships and vigilantism, and leave with Medusa’s head.
Judith, the superfan, is your modern ‘monster.’ She wears a mask of almost complete unassumingness, but when that mask slips, she cannot stop from shaking with rage before killing an innocent person who rejects her delusions of intimacy, or from cackling after killing a predator. Like Medusa, she transforms her traumas into ‘trophies,’ with cushions the new statues. But unlike Medusa, she gets to take revenge on her attacker. Accomplishing this with a traditionally feminine tool, the knitting needle, it recentres the mythology by imbuing womanhood with an agency previously denied.
By the midpoint of Never Hike Alone, you’re aware of all the pertinent facts about Judith – she’s a victim, a murderer, a jilted zealot, a righteous avenger – and yet when she stares into an eye-shaped mirror and you catch her gaze, who do you see in the reflection?
The third film on the bill, NIGHTSHIFT, is about a genius beset by insomnia and dreams of other dimensions. He’s surrounded by a cast of friends who, when they can stop bantering, try to save him before stranger things come crashing in.
Intended as a proof of concept for a TV series, this is for the better and the worse. Mystery boxes rain down on you, compelling you; a key goal in any serial format. However, as something self-contained, it tries to do too much. Such ambition leaves you no time to connect with the characters, and your interest remains technical rather than emotional. With the breathing space afforded in a serial, this isn’t incurable.
So, what can happen when artists are given some money and some freedom? Emergence 2025 took place in a dimly-lit Centre for Contemporary Arts adorned with signs proclaiming the place ‘partially closed.’ It was announced last year this was to ‘ensur[e] financial recovery.’ With funding for the arts routinely slashed, ‘what is the future?’ On the evidence of this triple bill, the potential is present. The future can be in safe hands, hands that just need a little clay to play with. It is imperative that this promise of tomorrow isn’t hacked off by the hatchets of today lest we forget today was also once just a promise of tomorrow.