There's many terrific Australian short films out there. In the past we've blogged about Tropfest winners - one of our favourites being Lucky. This week we're looking at another award winning Australian short film - Zero. Like another of the films we've looked at, Bottle, this film is a stop motion animation that uses unusual material for the figurines in its story. Bottle uses snow and sand for its characters. Zero uses string.
The film is set in a repressive world where people are numbered according to social status. Zero marks the people on the bottom rung of society, 9 is for those who are on top. Our hero of the film is a zero. He spends the first half of this short film mocked, excluded and vilified by those around him for being a zero and wondering how he can make "something out of nothing." When he meets another zero, however, and falls in love, things turn around. What we won't tell you what happens at the end, but there's smiles all round.
There's a range of things you can do with this film. After watching it and discussing it, we can get students to think about: What is something really unfair about the world today and how would you change it if you were in charge.
We can also ask students to pick out key quotes. You can watch half the film, get them two write down two important things that have been said, watch the rest of the film and then repeat the step. After discussing it, we can then get our students to write a summary of what happens using quotes as a way of practising integrating quotes into writing.
But what we're most interested in is getting students to think about genre. Available for download at our resource page is a list of different genres. Get students into pairs, give each pair a copy of this sheet and ask them to rank the genres. Which genre does this film most belong to and why.
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