Berlin Castro Review

September 9, 2020 at 3:55am
By Jason Stettner

This is a short film that follows two young publishing employees as they work through a night in order to piece together a mistakenly destroyed manuscript. The concept is rather interesting, and the format delivers it swiftly. It gets the point across, and it’s something unique to consider.

It’s less about the dialogue, and more about the journey in description of how one might handle a task like what’s been put forward. There’s a certainly element of translation and forgery. The idea of what makes an imitation, and what produces a forgery. How something like that is created, and why it is.

There’s not necessarily a whole lot to talk about story wise, as it’s rather neat in delivering a learning experience in a strangely well paced venture. You do get some initial starting points and then it essentially montages you towards a conclusion. It’s neat, and ends on a fine note.

I felt that the voice work was a tad stilted in this one. It could have been presented smoother. There wasn’t much of it via individual, but it left a mark. It almost felt out of place considering the excellent atmosphere that was provided.

The cinematography here was rather moody, and quite lovely. It was darker, and that helped set the tone for this late night creation. It was neat, I also enjoyed the musical additions of this one that further helped create a sense of tone. Going back to the voice aspect, I did find the narration over general points to be rather intriguing.

The Conclusion

Berlin Castro is a solid short film that has a rather intriguing concept and delivers on its core idea. The sense of atmosphere is great, and I really liked the execution of this idea. It worked well for the short film format with pacing that moved quickly. It’s definitely thought provoking, as it’s based around a concept that you might not think would work in this format and yet it does.

I had never thought about creative works in this particular way so that was interesting to ponder afterwards. It’s nice when a film can give you something to think about. Particularly a concept that’s different and perhaps something we take for granted without considering the work behind this sort of process.

Berlin Castro Review at Home with Streamed Viewing during Calgary Film Festival
Screening Provided by Calgary Film

Rating Overall: 7.4