Lost Cos At the 2023 Winter Film Awards

Our final post on this year's Winter Film Awards. We got the chance to attend the final day of this year's festival and the closing night film was a great pick to close out the festival. Before we get to the closing night film, let's start with Pukkulapottas and Hours in the Forest. A Japanese stop motion animation film about a man who was working from home due to the pandemic notices mysterious traces in his garden. When he sets up a camera to capture who have been making the traces. He sees tiny creatures around 15cm tall and becomes obsessed looking for them. He calls them Pukkulapottas and from there it becomes a endless search finding them. The stop motion animation is colorful due to the natural light around the creature. The narration is great as the man tries his best but fails and by the time the world goes back to normal he doesn't see them again. A delightful film which captures a vivid imagination in a world that doesn't resemble itself any more. We enjoyed it and think you will too. Theo is a science fiction film about a couple trying to conceive the perfect child. The couple goes to a gene-editing clinic to design what they want in their son that they naming Theo. While in the clinic the couple realize they may not be the best donors and goes into a conversation of what's best moving forward. A comedic yet insightful look into what can happen when the one you marry may not be the one you want to have kids with. A great film representative of Chile for the festival which was one of the funniest films we saw of the festival.

Solaris is a music video directed by Julie Joseph for the Belgium musical act SAYCET. A graphic video (nudity is involved) where characters emerge from a city where the sun never rises and dreams unfolds. The song wasn't bad and the video was inventive yet we felt like it was done for artistic purpose than for a music video. Lost Cos is the Closing Night film of the Winter Film Awards and it was a wild one. The film is set in New York City where cosplay is the theme. A cosplayer is found dead on a Jersey shore dress up as "Merman" in the opening sequence which leads us to Eni (played by Evgeniya Radilova) a dental assistant who is traumatized by her troubled childhood and murder of her girlfriend. She finds escape in a club called Los Cos where cosplay is encouraged and fantasy and reality is constantly blurred. As Eni enjoys her fantasy life in the club, the police who are investigating the murder heads to the club looking for clues. On top of that Eni's boss is in debt with a loan shark. All of this leads the audience into a road of mischief, fantasy and murder. Robin De Levita in his directorial debut really showcased the city and New Jersey in that matter similar to the comic book descriptions. Even the characters as they dress up as superheroes look like they're living in a graphic novel. Given that NYC have their own Comic Con and of course the Halloween Parade this movie will do well with the die hard cos players. It was a great pick to close out the festival.