The Stand
Oanh-Nhi Nguyen
2025, 15 mins.
“Can’t you miss one night?”
Struggling to make ends meet while a husband/wife battle works its way through court can never be easy. In this instance, a mother (Nicole Santiago), her precocious, perpetually hungry son, Liam, (Kailen Jude) and his older sister, Quinn, (Jovie Leigh readily carries the production from stem to stern) are suddenly left on their own to manage the food stand as Mom unexpectedly rushes in to court.
What binds everything together is Quinn’s upcoming début solo with her school choir—if only they can sell enough meals to allow the mother and brother to come and hear her in person!
Nguyen has done an admirable job binding the ups and downs of on-the-street commerce with family challenges. Any single parent (and their offspring) will easily feel at home. But next time, let’s find a better purveyor of subtitles which, in this instance, do more harm than good. AI anyone? 0JWR
Little Bird
Oanh-Nhi Nguyen
2025, 17 mins.
Don’t evict me, I’m just the messenger
It’s Los Angeles, 1980. The Vietnam War ended in 1975 and the United States is awash with all manner of Asian refugees. Making a living in The Land of the Free, is not as easy as it might seem to anyone who has never been forced out of a home, let alone a country. Hopefully, things will work out.
Fortunately for Linh (Chantal Thuy carries most of the film from first door knock to last-box packed), she has a roof over her head and a job to help pay her boss-subsidized rent. Trouble is, her chief (convincingly cynical Perry Young), writes dozens of eviction notices which they fall upon Linh to deliver—many of those soon to be tossed on the streets are her countrymen. But a gig’s a gig, right?
All goes as well as can be expected until Linh is mistaken for housing advocate Debbie Wei (Misha Gonz-Cirkl), offered a bowl of soup, then soon falls under the spell of missing-her-parents youngster, Thuy (Jolie Eden, adorable in every appearance)—a little bird in her own right.
From there, the film takes a marvellous twist in the memory of Linh’s dance with her sibling, then actual music (Khanh Bang’s “Co Nho Dem Nao” compellingly performed by Phuong Tam), offers a most welcome coda of hope for those many, many newcomers being taken advantage of by unscrupulous money grubbers to finally get, at least, a modicum of justice.
Three cheers to Nguyen for bringing this important truth to light! JWR
Disc
Blake Rice
2025, 14 mins.
A periodic first encounter
Nothing like an innocent hookup in a seedy motel, temporary infatuation, mutual release (we can only hope) then quickly dress and move on to the rest of our lives.
In this conjugal instance, the woman (no names, please, it’s just a tryst), wakes up, slips her bra back on and repairs to the loo to tart up before an early-morning business speech. Victoria Ratermanis (who also co-wrote the script with Rice) is entirely believable as she goes about her work only to have the realities of life threaten to ruin her day.
Her temporary paramour (the delightfully named Jim Cummings, resplendent in his form-fitting briefs), soon finds himself in a major role reversal from “how about now” to “how can I help you?” No spoilers here, but the title takes on an especial extra meaning even as the beleaguered housekeeping woman (Dawnnie Mercado) stoically tries to go about her chores.
Rice makes the most of the unusual plot, fine cast and extraordinarily “hummful” score from Kevin Garrett, enticingly whetting the appetite for a full feature from this talented lot. JWR