The Shroud

This short film was phenomenal. It started out as comedic for me, but half a minute into it as the story unfolded, and an understanding of the form they were using, holy heck, it was soo soo soo good. Well shot, directed, graded and music were all tonally on point.

Stunning work! Haven't seen something like this in this competition for a long time! Don't even know how to judge it or give it feedback. All I will say is that I hope this makes the Auckland city finals!

As a piece of abstract art, this was fascinating and disturbing. Not my cup of tea, as I didn't fully appreciate or understand what was happening, but it's still a beautifully crafted piece I can admire. Well done!

I was sat in stunned silence watching this at the finals last night. The cinematography in this is sooo incredible, cannot commend you enough for how beautiful this looks.

Have you ever lost someone close to you too soon? I'm meaning a spouse, a child, a sibling. Sitting here reflecting about my younger sister's death who passed from an accident when she was only 22 I'm telling you now the void of despair is more painful than anything you can ever imagine. Aligned with that I was absolutely blown away by how THE SHROUD was one of the very few films in the entire competition in 2025 that took a massive swing for the fences, and knocked their source material out of the park.

Here we have a modernistic yet grim naturalistic take on a deep cut from the German maestros. The driver of the beautiful haunting avant-garde tale being a shout for a missing child and swirling spiraling nothingness that sonically induces viewers to sit up and take notice as the film takes us on an undeniable pilgrimage down the river of grief.

There is a lot to unpack here. Metaphors for days run in abundance from rivers and lakes working as the flow of tears, to the pride of the family on a literal mountain as their precious future has been cruelly taken away instead being taken down to rocky ground.

Death makes life stand still and grasp onto those we know, cherish and love and Jake The Sound Guy absolutely nail a film that has a unique vision and knows how to get there. The subtext isn't even thinly veiled, we quite literally get the most disturbing image of this year's comp through a heavy veil.

But you know what? The filmmakers also present hope. They show that collective healing will heal all wounds, and nature as a whole will always run its course. To take the message from the source material and uplift it in a way that called to mind THREE MONKEYS and SATANTANGO quite genuinely blew me away.

It's a tight film, with not an inch of space wasted in the academy windowed shots that always direct the eye curiously to explore the true meaning of the silhouettes and backdrops, technology be damned. The audio is raw for its soundscape, trickles and waves and greenery coming to the fore. Stillness might be the name of the game visually, yet Jake knows what's up to make sure we are listening to what the film is really saying. Bravo.