All Her Children Fought

February 13, 2015 2:23 AM

About two and a half years ago an odd email dropped into my inbox out of nowhere. It seemed to be a quickly written email from someone in Ireland. The writer, Liam, said he was asking if I had any stories that I thought might be worth filming. In particular, he was trying to find something under fifteen minutes long that he, and a crew of others from his village in Ireland, could enter into a film competition. And they needed it, like, yesterday.

Tobias Buckell tells how one of his short stories became a movie. All Her Children Fought is now availabe on Youtube, proving you can make a sf movie with only three actors and one special effect.
posted by MartinWisse (4 comments total)

That was quite touching. I love SF that works on this scale. Small. Intimate. SF only in terms of setting and back-story.

I watched the film before I read Buckell's piece, and, until the end, thought the "one special effect" was going to be the shaking of the table, which would have been cool. That last scene in the greenhouse was very moving.

I've not read the short story, so I don't know if it's spelled-out...Am I correct in thinking Mia's job is to find (and bring-out) some little shred of humanity in the boy? I suppose to give him some deeper, more personal, reason to fight?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:25 AM on February 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think it is. Thorzdad. It's the most cost-effective way of doing it, I would guess, based on that Colonel's last chilling line about children costing less fuel to move around.

At the end, I was expecting the camera to pull back and reveal a huge greenhouse full of plants, but on reflection I like that we're never quite sure how many times she's done this, because the answer is, of course, "One time too many."
posted by Mogur at 6:19 AM on February 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Saw this the other day and thought it was a nicely done and very understated bit of work. The acting was significantly better than a lot of the SF stuff kicking around on Youtube etc too. The mother in particular was excellent.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:03 AM on February 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thank you for posting this.

I've been a big science fiction fan for most of my life, and as much as I appreciate all of the amazing CGI/SFX stuff that films and television can use today, the past few years I've grown to really appreciate SF that is more based on solid story and characterization than on eye-candy. Another Earth and Sound Of My Voice come to mind.

(Oh, I still loves me some eye-candy! But it's a totally different experience. When I see something like Iron Man or Guardians of the Galaxy or Oblivion, it's like "Wow, that's great production design! Who were the concept artists? I bet the guys down at the carwash really hate it when Daniel Simon brings his car in." But the more 'minimal' productions like the one featured in this post engage me on a more thoughtful level - not unlike reading a novel or short story).

(And yeah Happy Dave, you hit the nail on the head. Surfing through youtube looking for science fiction short films: Not Even Once!)
posted by doctor tough love at 9:27 AM on February 13, 2015