Ashley Catherine Dick’s statement piece short film offers a little more substance than the usual micro-budget yield, with a strong core message that hits hard despite a blistering pace and lead performance that can’t quite communicate the burden of the subject matter.
IT’S NEVER BEEN harder to break into the arts. As nepo babies reign, the prospect of hustling for a tentative chance — a mere toe in the door — is a daunting prospect; budget cuts to state funding have made an already impenetrable industry that bit more inaccessible.
Still, pinpricks of light shine through. Writer/director Ashley Catherine Dick is one such voice, a passionate creative with much to say about the arts, opportunities in Scotland, and how vanishing funds affect street-level artists.
Her new short follows aspiring painter Amber (Zara Hill), the embodiment of this idea. Her life is a metaphor: as Sisyphus once rolled a boulder uphill, only for it to roll back down, her never-ending attempts to break into the arts are similarly no-win.
It’s a grind that many creators face, a side effect of a closed-door industry that Dick communicates here with furious grit; the rat-a-tat editing and thunderclap score are like an uppercut, both effective and disorientating.
At only three minutes, time is perhaps not on her side — no idea is allowed much room to breathe — but together with co-editor Matthew Rooney, the key points are shaped into a short that firmly delivers on its promise: the arts are inaccessible, and through Amber we feel it.
Her first art sale is a win worthy of champagne and celebration, but the bubble is swiftly burst as friend June (Danni McWilliams) delivers the bring-her-down-to-earth line: ‘I thought [the painting] was going to be worth, like, millions?’
It’s a little on the nose, but Dick isn’t here for subtlety. She’s calibrated The Boulder to carry a loud, foghorn-like message on the state of arts funding in Scotland and refuses to downshift its ferocious speed — it’s in-your-face and a little punk-ish, a short brimming with passion and timely significance. Spread the word.
- The Boulder screens at Café Flicker 5th June and is released online the same day
