The Cambria Film Festival, running February 5-9, has given SLO Review the opportunity to preview many of the more than 80 full-length and short films that make up its 2025 program schedule. All-access passes, live screening only passes, and passes to view films virtually after the festival are available now.
Four short films that made the cut to be included in the Cambria Film Festival all revolve around challenges facing the main character or characters. The approaches each uses towards resolving these challenges are creative and often heartwarming.
Aloha Means I Love You
Meet Clara and Bertie, two older widows that have been best friends most of their lives, share a home, and think eating ice cream in front of Wheel of Fortune is a hot date—until Clara sets them up for a Hawaiian-themed blind date in their parlor: “Bert, I’m so lonely.”
Serving up fresh pineapple, Spam sandwiches, and a classic vinyl album of Hawaiian music while dressed in muumuus is Clara’s recipe for getting to know some strangers. Before their dates arrive, however, their friendship and resolve are challenged and (spoiler alert!) successfully overcome.
Aloha Means I Love You is a charmingly real film written and directed by Katy Dore. The stars include Ellen Gerstein as Bertie and Madonna Young Magee as Clara.
Family Portrait of the Black Earth
An animated film, Family Portrait of the Black Earth tackles a bittersweet emotional experience with metaphors, humor, and love in just over 10 minutes. As the film opens, we learn that the wife has just lost a breast to cancer. Not yet at peace with her condition, after a brief yet unsuccessful attempt to enter heaven she tasks her husband with finding an acceptable replacement breast.
In the midst of his sometimes hilariously clumsy yet loving attempts to do so, she allows neighbors to line up to see her healthy breast—and the other’s scar—through the window, in exchange for donations of primarily food and beverages.
The wife’s peace is eventually won, her sweet nature returns, and with metaphor joining storyline, the deep love between the couple is seen as they and the film journey to a heartwarming resolution.
Adapted from the book by the same name, Family Portrait of the Black Earth is directed by Ivan Popov-Zaria and edited by Maria Donchevska.
Infinity!
As Infinity! opens, a ticking stopwatch held by June foreshadows time running out.
Her husband Sunny appears, animatedly urging June to leave with him as they’ve now been identified as Japanese-Americans rather than the Chinese-American dancers they’ve been claiming to be.
It’s World War II and internment camps have just been opened to contain Japanese Americans.
While Sunny is urging June to flee the West Coast with him to live with family, June is in doubt, recalling their life together in dance sequences that reveal their passion for both dance and each other. They make a plan to meet up the next day and catch an eastbound train.
The final scene takes place at the train station and includes the question “How much do you love me?”
Though the dialogue occasionally feels awkward, the dance sequences are creative in telling the couple’s story, and their expressions emotionally convey the dilemma they’re facing. The film captures a poignant time in U.S. history in a few short minutes.
Written, directed, and produced by Benjamin To, the film stars Olivia Cordell as June and Jonathan Tanigaki as Sunny.
The Unseen
Opening in a lush tropical forest on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, this animated short fills the air with birdsong as an eager male honeyeater readies his nest with a final twig before singing notes to attract a mate.
We follow him in as he chases the returning notes to a surprising ending. At once charming and poignant, The Unseen leaves us pondering what comes next.
The film was created by an animation team at On the Edge, a not-for-profit multimedia and conservation organization led by Beth Blood.
Screenings of Aloha Means I Love You (run time 6 minutes), part of the “Growing Pains” Shorts Program sponsored by Judy & Ed Stokely, are at 1 p.m. on Thursday, February 6 and at 10 a.m. on Saturday, February 8.
Screenings of Family Portrait of the Black Earth (run time 10 minutes, animated), part of the “Family Matters” Shorts Program sponsored by Edward Jones Investments, are at 10 a.m. on Thursday, February 6 and at 1 p.m. on Sunday, February 9.
Screenings of Infinity! (run time 11 minutes), part of the “Complexities of Love” Shorts Program sponsored by Dennis Frahmann and Robert Tieman, are at 1 p.m. on Friday, February 7 and at 10 a.m. on Sunday, February 9.
Screenings of The Unseen (run time 3 minutes, animated), part of the “Reality Checks” Shorts Program sponsored by Audrey Killick/ Coldwell Banker, are at 10 a.m. on Thursday, February 6 and at 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 8.