Sweet movie about the reality of 48 hours with a talking dog; nice sound bites and nice to see the dogs have it in the bag again. Walking time, pacing more like; quirky music with the right sense of creep I might add; asking you silly questions keeping you engaged. Beutifully shot, memorable with simple premise, 4 doggy stars and a bark.

I loved this, so much to admire about the subtle performances of the two leads here as it’s a very difficult subject to encapsulate, particularly in a five minute short! Could easily have stagnated at single-level playing of emotion, but this rose to heights that really made you care about the plight of both.

The cinematography was stunning; film school warned of using lens-flare and that it should be avoided. In places here, it raised the bar. Felt like watching something truly cinematic.

A great piece that stands in isolation as a collaborative effort of the highest quality, outside of the competition. A film to be proud of.

Looking forward to more next year…

This is pure, uncut, overcaffeinated, balls-through-the-wall, get-that-in-ya-son, only-in-48hours animated carnage and I adore it so damn much.

I just wanted to say well done, first up, for a touching, expertly crafted watch. The cinematography was excellent (I also loved the lens flare, and think it's a good reminder that rules are never black and white!), and music was used very effectively. In fact, the entire soundscape was fantastic! The music choices effectively complemented the emotion. The scenery noises and editing of echo/texture in voices/whispers combined so well to set the mood!

Excellent chemistry between leads, and a fantastic performance by the loved one left behind. Grief is raw, non-linear, and unpredictable, and I felt you showed this really clearly.

Generally speaking, it's been so nice this year to see such a variety of relationship types coming through films, and I think the "anniversary movie" was a good catalyst for more of that!

The dramatic climax is well built up, and has a good payoff into the ending.
All the elements in this film combine really well to create a lot of feeling in a film where, action-wise, very little happens. And that's not a complaint--you know you're doing something right when you can make people feel something with minimal action, and still have a significant emotional shift in the characters.

Look forward to seeing what you create next :)

I caught this in the heats and really enjoyed it then. I enjoyed it again on the rewatch! Very nicely put together with excellent camera work, fantastic performances by the leads, both human and canine, and well edited with good use of music and sound.

I've seen a few meta films this year about needing to make films, and although it could seem like that's a cop-out storyline to choose, they've actually all been pretty creative, unique, and distinct from each other! The good thing about using that trope is at least everyone can relate to it :)

Excellent effort on the Ringo impression, and I loved the Beatles lyric references dropped into the script.

Always enjoy catching Team Spielberg's films, so well done again Craig :)

Loved this film. Great pacing and the story had me guessing where it was headed. The pay off was unexpected but satisfying. On top of the story elements some really great cinematography and editing techniques on display throughout. Nicely done!

Surface Pressure is an incredibly polished film that incorporated some interesting editing techniques to keep everything flowing in a compelling way. I've noticed that having a character grieving over a lost partner has been a common theme for the Anniversary genre and this film seemed to pull it off in an elegant way.
Though the film has a solid emotional core I do wonder if it could have done more to hammer home the death in the short or elaborate on it a little bit further to give the second half of it a bit more weight. There is some implied stuff going on which can be good but I think a bit more detail could've helped. There is also a melancholy to the music in the first half of the short which makes me wonder if we are watching a flashback or if the film is playing out in sequence.
All in all, it's a quality short film.

Perfection!

Severely disappointed to see this film take home the win. Yes, formally great, Ok. However, in times of climate emergency and severe ecological threat, the narrative of this film felt exceptionally naive. Again, we are seeing the age-old trope of individual change and micro-action (in this case, walking instead of driving to school) offer a cathartic solution to the enormous issues of climate change. I am not suggesting we abandon our duties to the planet, but many of us are sick of seeing moral messages that shove ecological responsibility onto those with minimal means to make any substantial difference.

The fact that soft-ecological-solution-porn takes the top prize for NZ’s largest film competition worries many of us. The judges, whether they like it or not, are cultural curators, determining the fate of filmmaking and the way political issues are advanced on-screen. Why are they rewarding the exact mediocre solutions the state has advanced for the last decade? Have we not learned that we need to do more than what this film advocates? Where are the radical filmmakers? Has this competition weened them out?