A HOLE
A skilled workman digs a perfect hole in a cracked earthen plain in an endless warehouse, a series of well-dressed people come and sit on comfortable couches offering contradictory opinions, and the job gradually unravels.
If you work in the creative industries this process may seem familiar. In fact if you work in any industry you will find this story speaks to you.
‘A Hole‘ is a surreal short film that explores the existential pain of working in a corporate hierarchy or perhaps just of working at all. It references and contemporises Greek myths, the theatre of the absurd, 60‘s radical cinema and 70‘s British sitcoms.
Funny and tragic, or perhaps just tragic, it has a stellar cast and crew including actors Josh McKenzie, Byron Coll, Leisha Ward Knox, David Van Horn and Lucy Wignore, director of photography Dave Garbett, production designer Jon Lithgow, editor Alex O‘Shaughnessy and vfx artist Leon Woods.
Director: James Solomon
Live-Action, New Zealand, 2020
11:38 min
nominated for Best Short Film 20MINMAX 2021
James Solomon is an award winning moving image director based in New Zealand. He works on commercials, music videos and narrative content. He was one of 7 LBB emerging NZ directors in 2015 and before this one of NZ’s top music video directors.
His short film ‘Bound‘ was nominated for best actor at the 2017 New Zealand film awards, ‘McWhopper‘ won the Cannes Grand Prix in 2016 and was the most nominated campaign of 2016.
His work features a high degree of technical ability, but at the same time tells human stories that surprise, entertain and encourage people to reflect on the current world.
WE THE PEOPLE
Movies
THE QUEUE
The Queue is a satirical look at the repercussions faced when a young Woman jumps the queue at a theatre box office....
REBEL
Alex, a six-year-old boy from Quebec, is much too young to understand why thousands of refugees have been entering Canada illegally. Yet when his father takes him along to a vigilante patrol in the woods to hunt out trespassing migrants, something inside him tells him to rebel....
SOLO
Solo is an animation film based on the famous Solo dance performance by the dancer and choreographer William Forsythe and filmed in 1995. It is made frame by frame from photographs and drawings....
THE GAME
A whistle. The stands of the stadium get loud. The players protest angrily. The presenters follow the action on the field. In the middle of it, the referee. The whole stadium watches him. Now he has to decide and direct the energy of an entire stadium....
A HOLE
A man digs a hole, people watch him do it. A skilled workman digs a perfect hole in a cracked earthen plain in an endless warehouse, a series of well-dressed people come and sit on comfortable couches offering contradictory opinions, and the job gradually unravels....
THE LINE
A shy debt collection agent faces her strict manager and difficult conversations with debtors....
CATARACT
Nicky is an excentric and outcast woman. She decides to put an end to her life after loosing her last allowances, and decides to entrust her dog Izy to her neighboor. But as the neighboor changes her mind and turns the dog back, a run around the clock begins for Nicky who is about to overdose… Her last hope resides in Jacques, a social services employee doing his firstcontrol at Nicky’s appartment...
HYPERSTITION
What if walking on the tiles without touching the lines had the power to change our lives?...