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The Short Films of Nacho Vigalondo

Magnificent Bastard loves Nacho, Tron loves Nacho, and we think you should too!
Starring: Nacho Vigalondo, a cow, others
Rating: 10/10
Directed By: Nacho Vigalondo
Runtime: various

This year at FantasticFest, the Alamo Drafthouse put together a collection of short films by the deserved winner of the 2007 Best Film Award for his World Premier of Los Cronocrìmenes (Timecrimes, opens theatrically in the USA in December and will have a shitty remake in 2009 or so) and one of the freshest new voices in film in many a year, Nacho Vigalondo. I was privileged to see this on my birthday and have rarely had more fun in the cinema. Nacho is able to take virtually no budget and a huge concept and blend both into a magical viewing experience, with bite and wit and panache, reflecting the personality of the director himself. These films are mostly available on youtube.com, among other sites and a simple title search in google will help you on your way but this is MUST SEE VIEWING. The freshness of his ideas and the clever way of communicating those concepts is original and striking, all the while impressing the viewer with it's simplicity.

Limoncello: A Nacho-produced series of festival films where the structure and theme had to be Spaghetti Westerns. Three of Spain's hottest young directors take a very surreal look at the genre.

The Galactic Adventures of Jamie De Funes and Arancha: A failed pilot where Nacho and his co-pilot superhero duo complete with wacky space helmets, fight evil across the galaxy in one absurd situation to the next. Nacho's vomit is real, as attested to by bonus footage of what it took to make him throw up (whiskey and milk with repeated jabs to the stomach).

Changing the World: A man wakes up in the morning and begins his daily routine but when he makes a choice a second, parallel version wakes up also. The man must band together with several selves to figure out what's gone wrong. Simple idea brilliantly executed with a glimmer of Timecrimes in the making.

Choque: Nacho and his girl are chilling at a local amusement arcade and take a harmless ride on the bumper cars, one of Nacho's favorite pastimes. A local kid bumps his girlfriend, which Nacho takes as a slight second only to the slapping of the Virgin Mary. What follows is one of the most bizarre revenge, get-even stories you'll ever see.

Code 7: Could be the greatest, hard-hitting science fiction epic ever committed to celluloid as Palmer Eldritch, the most powerful man in the 25th Century, is held captive on the planet Uranus and lives his life out in a virtual reality and must struggle to win his freedom. A trilogy followed by Part 2 where Palmer Eldritch, now free, struggles against arch-nemesis Mechon and Part 3 which has to be seen to be believed. One of the funniest no-budget - hell, any budget - films you'll ever see and a great exhibition of Nacho's talent.

Sunday: The scene: an Ed Wood spaceship dangles in frame. Nacho and "his wife's" voices discussing the 17 hours of Nacho's taping the phenomenon, the nothing that's happened, when something's gonna happen and what tape are you taping over. Hilarity ensues. Again, a stellar example of no-budget filmmaking with a powerful idea outshining feature-length efforts.

7:35 in the Morning: Nominated for a 2005 Academy Award (proving again that they don't know shit), Nacho goes to great lengths to impress a beautiful woman he's never talked to before. This short shows Nacho's versatility yet still maintains the quirky elements that cause you to shake your head in amazement at how simple yet cleverly complex his style is. Give the man the damn award!

A Lesson in Filmmaking: My favorite of the bunch, and I loved them all. Nacho teaches a very important lesson utilizing a camera, a cow and "the batball." It sounds like a broken record but so, so clever and so, so obviously true and he gets you with it anyway. I don't want to give anything away but the most prevalent question after the showing was about the batball (and I got an answer so if you wanna know, email me).

Nacho Vigalondo is a brilliant and fresh filmmaker whose work bears watching and friendship has been an education in fun. Timecrimes, as stated up front, gets a theatrical release in December and, speaking as a man who's seen it already, I'm going again with as many people as I can drag along. I cannot speak highly enough about Nacho or this program of shorts and I hope the Alamo will consider releasing this on DVD. Check out youtube and keep your eye on Nacho Vigalondo. I assure you you'll be hearing a lot from him in the years to come.


I tried to find as many subtitled versions as possible. For Sunday turn the sound off as the rip has a strange hiss.

Choque:



Sunday:



Code 7 part 1:



Code 7 part 2:



Code 7 part 3: