Bud

A man has to make a difficult phone call to his son, not knowing how long it will be until he sees him again.

Bud is a short film that was written and directed by Jack McLoughlin. One of the things that makes Bud work as such an effective short film is the apparent focus McLoughlin seems to have over his material. Writing a good and simple short film isn’t easy and it’s often one becomes over ambitious with it. Here, we have almost a perfect setup for a great short film that’s been diluted to its most minimalist element: just a man, having a conversation over the phone, in one location, in just a few minutes. And despite this time constraint we get a perfect and entirely satisfactory beginning, middle and end in just four minutes. Having a satisfying conclusion to your short film is extremely difficult, yet McLoughlin finds in this ambiguity the perfect conclusion for a viewer to walk away with a perfectly suitable ending. Full review at: https://afistfuloffilm.com/2021/03/09/bud-2021-an-emotionally-resonant-drama/