Short of the Day
Consequences come to life in Adam Ciolfi’s stop-motion film.
This week has everyone thinking a lot about the world we’ve made by our decisions, and what the ramifications and consequences of those decisions could soon be. It’s a frightening fact but indeed a true one that mankind, having no other natural predator on the planet, is then its own worst enemy, and certainly if you scan the headlines we seem to be hell-bent on proving that in every sector of our civilization.
These are the ideas that fueled filmmaker Adam Ciolfi’s latest stop-motion short, Hive, which was made over the course of two years and is set in a bleak, dystopic and dying world where intelligent insectoid survivors spend their remaining hours trying to concoct meaning out of the chaos they’ve wrought. It’s a somber and elegiac work to be sure, but it’s also beautifully-rendered, highly-imaginative, and like any parable not meant to bemoan the state of anything, but rather warn us of the folly of ourselves hopefully before any Rubicons are crossed.
There’s a quote by Edmund Burke that I’ve been thinking about a lot this week: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And maybe I’m just looking for kinship where I can find it, but it feels to me like Adam Ciolfi might have had the same quote in mind, at least conceptually, when making this short. Everyone and everything that isn’t working for a solution is working for the problem, and the time to figure this out isn’t in the midst of regret. Hive isn’t shiniest, happiest short we’ve brought you this week, but it might just be the most relevant.
Related Topics: Short Films
