In this assortment of 20 short films, some fiction, some documentaries, all designed to capture the mood of post-Brexit Britain, a few are heavy-handed. But most use humour and originality to shock us into submission.
Pavement shows a homeless man (Steve Evets) outside a bank, sinking into the ground. The more he struggles, the deeper he goes. The SFX - simple but effective - work in tandem with Evets’ face. His mottled cheeks don’t seem covered in skin: they look like a vegetable-mineral hybrid. His raw eyes tell a different story and the terror in them makes you gulp.
Mark Addy is equally spry as a proud Brit who does so well in a citizenship challenge that he’s catapulted into a next-level existence: life as a swan (Addy’s deadpan expression is a joy). Meanwhile, Paul Kaye sends sparks flying as a horny, lonely school caretaker in Ernie, and What’s In A Name offers an essay on identity that combines pleasantly elliptical images with exceptionally smart interviewees.
Also memorable is Ken Morgan, the Jamaican-born British pensioner, now stranded in the Caribbean, who dominates the atmospheric documentary Motherland (Morgan tells bitter jokes serenely, and his sentences are paced like poetry).
I also liked the little Welsh boys testing their strength in Camelot, and the vigorous, dentally challenged organiser of a food bank in Left Coast. People of all ages and colours make themselves heard in The Uncertain Kingdom, a blazingly ambitious anthology that refuses to leave anyone out in the cold.
Available on demand from BFI Player in two feature length selections from June 1
