Above: Trailer for A Message from Outer Space
Frits, a lonesome, unworldly astronomer, is in pursuit of extraterrestrial life in order to find the true friendship, he cannot not find on earth.
When one day an egg falls on his head, his lonely existence fills up with hope. Convinced of the fact that there is an extraterrestrial creature inside the egg, he decides to incubate it.
Roel Mondelaers and Raf Reyntjens A Message from Outer Space was my other favourite from the kinofilm festivals Kino Fantasy selection of short films. With a running time of just 10 minutes A Message from Outer Space is a beautiful looking well shot and well scored piece set to a very fitting down tempo electronic score. The set design and the look match those of many full length high quality productions. Frits played by Matthias Schoenaerts gives a cool performance relying heavily on facial expressions as this is a one man piece (Well there is the egg and a robot).
The robot is very well made and Fiona who I watched the film with felt very sorry for the little fellow when he fell off the table.
While incubating the egg, Frits is visited by a large flock of geese that smash through the windows of his laboratory and the shot / effects is quite simply amazing.
I don't want to give away much as it's only a short, but the hatching of the eggs inhabitant leads to a genuinely laugh out loud funny moment which had the festival audience all chuckling.
I don’t know how or where you would get to see this other than a festival screening somewhere (Maybe iTunes), but if you get a chance make sure you do its 10 minutes well spent.
Running time 10 mins (Short / Fantasy/ Sci-Fi)
