Ven

Never have I seen a short film with so much to say, packaged in such a tender and tiny parcel, but I think I have found it with Jude Lister’s Ven.

Though its running time is swift, Lister touches on the subject’s profoundness, such as our inability to fully cope with the grief over the loss of a loved one, along with the need for constant gratification and the potentially destructive search to find a perpetual state of euphoria.

Tiaan Kaltwasser plays and narrates the story as a man addicted to Pyre, a hallucinogenic drug that allows consumers to re-experience the best moments of their lives. In our narrator’s case, it is laughing and loving away the hours with Ven (Amelia Weenig), his deceased wife. He muses as to the nature of loss and the solace found in being engulfed and finally lost in blissful times past.

“…laughing and loving away the hours with Ven…”

Danger and death also walk hand in hand with the explosion of Pyre on our society, as people are dying by simply neglecting themselves as their minds remain trapped in the highlight reels of their own existence, playing on constant repeat every time they get their fix.

Sadly, in the blink of an eye, the film is over. But, Ven has staying power. Lister has a cavalcade of extraordinary prospects of which his film only scratches the surface. Oftentimes filmmakers will trial a plot or an idea in short form in the hopes of gauging an audience’s reaction to the concept before they boldly expand it. One would hope that could possibly be the intention of Jude Lister.