Best Experimental 2019 Winner

Failing Up

“Failing Up” describes career advancement despite bad decisions, bankruptcies, and intellectual mediocrity. In this short film, the Manhattan real estate holdings of the King of Failing Up are catalogued and synced to a soundtrack that suggests how it feels to be one of his subjects. Whip pans, zooms, lens twists, and bursts of stop-frame animation transform eight minutes of borrowed audio from “Home Alone 2” (a film that features a cameo of the current U.S. President) into a political work of slapstique concrete.