Reel Love Film Fest 2021 Short Program Highlights: ‘Sloan Hearts Neckface,’ ‘I Hate Your Guts,’ ‘Feeling Through’

The Reel Love Film Fest is in its first year with an impressive showing of feature films, all centering on the them of love. What is interesting about the festival—especially one taking place leading up to Valentine’s Day—is that the films are about all kinds of love, from romantic, to personal, to family, friends, and strangers. The film program has featured so far films like the zany yet sweet “Dinner in America,” the touching and somber “My Little Sister,” and the wonderful “True Mothers,” which explored adoption and teen pregnancy from an empathetic standpoint. 

But features don’t get to have all the fun, and so here we examine three short films in the film fest’s various short programs, which, like the features, examine love from many angles. The films center on a length of roughly 20 minutes, and explore friendship, romance, and in-between. 

I’ll start with “Sloan Hearts Neckface,” from the “It’s Complicated” block, a creative short directed by Justin Flair and written by Ian Grody. The film centers on a girl named Sloan (Clara Mamet of “Maniac Cop”) and ‘Neckface’ (Raúl Castillo), a mysterious graffiti artist Sloan has fallen in love with, even though they’ve never met. The film takes place in New York City, amidst the streets, buildings, and billboards, focusing on Neckface’s graffiti (he spray paints ‘Neckface’ over a lot of things) with Sloan adding hearts to his graffiti and leaving little notes for him professing her love. The movie is told through letters—very “Dracula”-esque in that way—that both Sloan and Neckface write to each other. It includes a third character in that of Lester (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) that becomes sort of a consternation for the pair. 

What works about “Sloan Hearts Neckface” is it is just plain fun. Flair takes us on a fun tour of NYC that invites us in comedically. Both Sloan and Neckface leave endearments in their letters, but this sometimes escalates to angry missives when they feel the other isn’t returning their feelings appropriately. Of course there’s a larger point here, that love isn’t always easy and misunderstandings can occur, but it’s handled in a way that makes the film watch easily. Both Castillo and Mamet are fun to watch, as is Whitlock Jr., and the short keeps your on your toes as it plods along to its ending. With humor, visuals, and a unique narrative process, “Sloan Hearts Neckface” is a fun and sweet film that pleases and doesn’t betray its mission. 

The second short is “I Love Your Guts” from the “Love Chills” block, a film about two young women working the overnight shift at a fast food restaurant and their efforts to ward off a drunk customer who threatens to make their night a little too memorable. The film, written and directed by David Janove (“First Date”), looks to explore friendship and unrequited love from a humorous, albeit raunchy standpoint as the leads navigate their way through the film. It introduces us to Jacqui (Danielle Kay) and Kristina (Allie McCarthy), the two women stuck working at the restaurant. We see the usual pieces of dead-end job cynicism here, but also a new note: Kristina is secretly in love with Jacqui, and struggles to keep her feelings to herself during the film’s run. 

“I Love Your Guts” is a somewhat problematic film, as it fluctuates between genres, and has trouble deciding what film it wants to be. The length feels to short for the material, which at one moment is raunchy, the next horrific, and yet the next sweet. It starts to explore one theme, unrequited love and homosexuality, but quickly shifts gears to over-the-top horror. It’s clear that Janove took inspiration for the film from zany comedies like “Waiting,” which is fine. But what happens here is that “I Love Your Guts” wants to be more. One minute Kristina is mortified to think she came on too strong to her friend, and the next is fighting off a knife-wielding madman. The film also applies a gross-out effect to the proceedings which I found bizarre. The short is filmed well, but another 5 minutes, with some more concrete dialogue and an ending that wrapped up its themes better, would have suited it well. 

That brings us to the final short for this preview, “Feeling Through,” from the “Indie Street Selects block,” which is written and directed by Doug Roland (“Jada”). This is a focused story, following a teenager in New York City who is starting down a hard path (Steven Prescod), who meets a blind/deaf man on the streets of New York (Robert Tarango), the two having a profound effect on each other. It features a hard look at things, such as the young Tareek who seems to not have any money nor anywhere to stay, a line of broken relationships apparent from his brief text conversations. It’s clear that the disabled Artie (Tarango) gets by, but his lot in life affects the lost Tareek, who minutes earlier blew off a homeless man who asked him for money. Artie and Tareek’s journey doesn’t bring them anywhere grand—just a NYC bus stop—but the healing that takes place because of it takes it for granted. 

This is a splendid film, one that explores the human condition with empathy and without judgement. Both Tarango and Prescod are fine actors, and their interactions with each other are real and insightful. The film makes interesting use of close-up shots to highlight the pair’s interactions, which are possible only by Artie writing on a notepad he has memorized the layout of, and Tareek by drawing lines on the man’s palm. There are some lessons contained within, of kindness, integrity, and compassion, and the film ends sweetly and ordinarily, and that’s a compliment. “Feeling Through” is encompassed entirely at night, with just a small look at these two men’s lives. It’s emotional and pleasing, and one short I will definitely remember when I look back at my time at Reel Love.