Vulnerability, confusion, and perception - in "Blinded" Whenary explores these very human conditions, in a poignant, and voyeuristic way. The scene is clearly a "clip" of a much larger event, the unfortunate repercussions evident in a body laying on the ground on the side of a country road.
What isn’t evident is just as intriguing as what is clearly evident. Although evidence of physical harm is indicated in the victims struggle to reach for the eyeglasses, recollection of memory is yet another way in which the victim has been harmed.
As a viewer I feel that I am up close watching this event as it occurs, trying to make sense of what has happened. I feel as though I am watching, but not making an effort to help the victim in this unfortunate situation.

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Reviewed by Steve Ceraso

What a beautiful, intimite, subtle and intense film.

It reflects a truth we don’t know yet. Alzheimer, dementia. This is what it must be like. Mark Zuniga succeeds in picturing the life of a man who starts loosing his memory. The shortcuts in the brain, the memorygaps, the desperate search for something he can relate to. How the most familiar things in the house become estranged objects. I’ve seen films on Alzheimer before, but the experience never came so close.

On his everyday walk to the park, the man passes another man, who always starts to talk to him. The next day, the same talk. But our man can’t remember and it makes him feel uneasy. The third day, the man is avoiding the chatting neighbour. What a subtle way to show that the man has no memory of meeting, but he does remember that feeling of unease. The intelligent script is full of subtleties like this.

The film is almost 20 minutes, and that is long. Not for the cinema perhaps, but on the internet, one is inclined to move on. That was what I did, the first time i clicked on the film and only saw black, the first 1.30 minute. I am very glad that I clicked on it again, and saw it till the end. It is more than worth it. Because unlike most short films, this film ends with an intense emotion. Mark Zuniga build up to that emotion, very patiently, very precise, with beautiful photography and great contrivance.

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Reviewed by Femke

This film makes a mark for intuitive filmmaking. No script, no concept. And yet, there it is: a film like a dream, that makes sense all the same.
The film is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, but because the filmmaker lures you step by step, shot by shot into this unknown world, all feels in a strange way familiar.

The only moment I was not able to go along with the film, was near the end, with the screenshots of the news. I felt that it was not in place, because unlike the rest of the film, I DID see seemingly meaningful screenshots of the news before, in other films. It felt like a breach with the originality of the film.

But that’s just a detail. Just a few shots. As for the rest of the film: Every shot is both logical and a-logical, rational and irrational. It’s a film you can watch over and over and still see things you did not see before. Thanks to a perfect mix of animation techniques, clever filming and most and for all: outstanding editing, on a piece of music that seems to be written for the film, instead of the other way around.

Matthieu Cherubini is an artist who speaks the language of both art and cinema. That’s a rare but strong combination of talents.

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Reviewed by Femke

Sweet is a surreal multidisciplinary work. Using several variations of hand made fine art techniques the artist synthesizes the many fragments together.
The work occurs to be a dream like narrative. The piece is also of a multi-sensory nature as sounds and diverse imagery activate several emotions. Over all the work has a darker undertone, the black and white camera work works really well.
It is unclear as to what the main objective is, but I get a sense of an over all metaphoric array of pieces, parts and snippets. Our human character glorifies and nurtures the little doll.
He seems to saves him and seemingly cares for him, only until we see the doll left abandoned at the climax! News reviews pass by on an old grainy television. This suggests that the outcome is not positive. Are you left feeling sad for the doll?

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Reviewed by Ryan Seslow

Angel
This video is surreal and hypnotic with a creepiness reminiscent of very early David Lynch (think Erasurehead). The work makes you think of wanting to tame that banana before bringing angels into the world.

Meet
In the tradition of Hans Bellmer’s "La pouppe” this animated video continues the surreal inclinations of Nung Hsin Hu.A lump of meat, a missing leg and an eye between your legs sounds like a dream sequence i imagined by Salvador Dalí. Nung Hsin Hu hypnotizes you again with this wonderful uncanny sequence.

Dozen
Great sound editing in a dreamy video by Nung Hsin Hu. As with "Meet" the artist uses the trope of rubber gloves, breaking a dozen of eggs into a surface.
The shot is very ingenious as the camera is positioned below a glass surface, making the spectator have the view of a frying pan looking up. The artist transforms something very familiar into an uncanny experience.

Interface
A needle, a giant tongue or a humongous vulva? Sewing tight close the lips of a vagina has always been a fantasy of the surrealists (Remember "El" by Luis Buñuel).
In this video what could be interpreted as a monstrous vulva (including its fur) is shut down by an apt pair of hands with the needle ...somebody better call Sigmund Freud.... pronto!

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Reviewed by Tom

I really am enjoying this piece. Random people are confronted to describe a piece of street art that has been wheat pasted onto the surface of a location in Baltimore.
We never get to see the actual piece, only fragments of the faces of the random people who were willing to stop and share their insights. Each statement is as diverse as the people themselves. The emphasis is on expression, the expression of both the works and the people trying to assert the meaning of the piece.

Really well done, a great idea that is full insightful content.

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Reviewed by Ryan Seslow

The video tests you patients as you become increasingly uncomfortable, it is the same invocation one develops whilst they wait to see their dentist.
The silence and dull interior setting is sterile, institution like and ugly.
This double channel work flashes back and forth to add to the disruption to of one’s ability to stay patient. A test of human duration, even at only 01:16 we are happy that the piece ends when it does.

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Reviewed by Ryan Seslow

Hitchcock famously defined suspense: We all know the bomb is going off – we just don’t know when. Robin is clearly playing with us. Teasing us. Being nasty to us. Making us feel. The build up. Anticipation. The Moment. Come on. Come on. COME ON! Don’t make me wait anymore… who is the car going to hit? What is she making in the kitchen? What is HAPPENNNNINNNNNNNNNNNG?

Beautifully shot and crafted. Fantastically framed. Completely wonderful and: Full – of - freaking - dread. Domestic horror. Domestic Terror. Domestic Hell. Telephones are evil things. Who’s calling now? Never going to be able answer it.
Sometimes the bomb doesn’t goes off but we can still hear it ticking…

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Reviewed by Jordan Baseman

I am a vegetarian. This hasn’t always been the case. When I was 13 I decided to stop eating meet and fish. This was in part because of the cruelty that I perceived in the act of eating flesh from other creatures and also because my family were ravenous meat eaters. I didn’t want to be just like them… when I turned 23 I ate a steak. Just like that. It was wonderful. It had been so long. After that I ate as much flesh as possible: especially raw fish. I loved raw fish. Five years ago I took a vow: I was no longer going to eat meat of any kind. It was too cruel and not how I wanted to live my life. My wife and I made a pact.

Nung Hsin Hu’s film Meet made me laugh (nervously), and think of clowns, Chucky, Stanley Spencer and the Smiths. I hate Morissey. He’s a real whiner. But I appreciate his anti-meat eating stance. Nung Hsin Hu’s film is like a bad circus: scary, low-tech and very very dark. You can’t really see for the blackness but the ideas are rich – you can almost smell the flesh. To be honest I miss sashimi.

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Reviewed by Jordan Baseman

Spinning Universe takes us on a surreal peak into what occurs to be a fragmented dream. We see a modular series of screens that jump from the center to the left and to the right.

Thus suggesting random thoughts and scattered thinking. We see images of dolls and figurines or religious and hollywood icons. Christ and Marylyn Monroe are Juxtoposed together into a ongoing series of actions.
As the confusion grows we hear and then see a character fire a weapon at another figure suggesting its death. The spinning turntable has an object on it that combusts slightly before the sound of gun shots. The spinning turntable damaged yet still spins on, much like the ongoing life force itself.

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Reviewed by Ryan Seslow

Stranger is slow moving through the eyes of its main character, He just lost his Mother. His demenour evokes uncertainties with in us. It creeps up on us, and follows us. I find that stranger deals with several kinds of intimacy.
The awkward ones that we never really get used to. Death, getting old, dealing with a cheating partner, physically being attacked, and violence. They evoke a loneliness that these experiences contain.
These are dark emotions, uncertain ones that propel our ego as it perpetuates negative vibrations. The film brings us to the tipping point, the point of no return where the soul transcends the ego to expresses itself. A life is lost and yet there is a rebirth of some kind. Was it a dream, or was it all real?

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Reviewed by Ryan Seslow