ELEMENTAL
A film by Various Artists
2025, Approx. 109 minutes
2025, Approx. 109 minutes
No. 493
Documentary, Shorts
Documentary, Shorts
Note: Elemental is sold as a bundle package including all short films. Please contact info@grasshopperfilm.com to inquire about licensing individual titles.
Description
Directed by award-winning and emerging filmmakers from around the world, Elemental is a thought-provoking series of short documentaries that explore our lives through the elements of the periodic table. There are as many stories about how the elements touch our lives as there are creative ways to portray them, and the collection champions films from across the wide spectrum of creative documentary approaches.
CARBON (The Broken Circle)
Directed by Zhao Liang / China / 6 mins
From the coal mines of China’s northern grasslands to the nearby desert, the film depicts the absurd reality and illusory cycle of humans creating destruction and trying to remedy it at the same time.
-
CESIUM (9,192,631,770 Hz)
Directed by Todd Chandler / USA / 12 mins
A filmmaker’s conversations with his young son about the different ways in which they experience time leads to a deeper reflection of what time actually is, attempts to control it, and how it shapes human experience in a film that is personal, philosophical, poetic, political and scientific.
-
IRON (A Robust Heart)
Directed by Martín Benchimol / Argentina / 11 mins
Slaughterhouse workers with blood still wet on their clothes, their skin glowing with sweat, speak with sensitivity, or about the impossibility of sensitivity. The camera is their psychoanalyst’s couch in this film that starts out as a playful portrait series and becomes an exploration of what it means to be a father.
-
LEAD (BAEA)
Directed by Terra Long / British Columbia, Canada / 19 mins
In the depths of winter, at an animal rescue center on the pacific coast of Canada, a team of rehabbers treat bald eagles suffering from lead poisoning so that they can be released back to their environment. The film gently follows a difficult season and the perennial tension at the core of the rehabbers code of ethics: how to care for wild animals in a human environment while maintaining the dignity and wildness of the animal.
-
CHLORINE (Public Pool)
Directed by Elizabeth Lo / USA / 13 mins
In the USA, swimming pools have long been contested sites of privilege, class, and race – serving as both symbols of wealth and excess and as reprieves from the ever-increasing heat for the urban poor. This observational portrait of one of the few remaining public pools in the heart of Los Angeles becomes a visual celebration of public spaces as well as a meditation on family and the luxury of leisure.
-
HELIUM (Victoria)
Directed by Sam Soko / Kenya / 12 mins
Victoria is on a new journey in life. She set up a helium balloon business in Nairobi as a means of surrounding herself with joy, as well as finding security after escaping an abusive relationship. Five years later, she is redefining her existence as a daughter, a mother and a woman.
-
SILVER (Family Fortunes)
Directed by Mila Turajlić / Serbia / 11 mins
In their Belgrade home, a daughter reluctantly participating in her mother’s ritual cleaning of the family silver turns into a reflection on how the objects we preserve embody our passage through times of war, displacement and revolution and explores the transmission of heritage and family folklore.
-
SODIUM (No Mean City)
Directed by Ross McClean / Northern Ireland / 15 mins
Two workmen and an apprentice navigate Belfast at night, replacing old sodium street lights with LED. Beneath their glow, the city grapples with change, as progress marches on.
-
ZINC (Memento Mori)
Directed by Ainara Vera / Spain/Italy / 9 mins
As rhythmic machines press zinc sheets into coffins, factory workers reflect on their own mortality. Memento Mori turns the hum of a coffin factory into a lyrical call to embrace life before it slips away.
From the coal mines of China’s northern grasslands to the nearby desert, the film depicts the absurd reality and illusory cycle of humans creating destruction and trying to remedy it at the same time.
-
CESIUM (9,192,631,770 Hz)
Directed by Todd Chandler / USA / 12 mins
A filmmaker’s conversations with his young son about the different ways in which they experience time leads to a deeper reflection of what time actually is, attempts to control it, and how it shapes human experience in a film that is personal, philosophical, poetic, political and scientific.
-
IRON (A Robust Heart)
Directed by Martín Benchimol / Argentina / 11 mins
Slaughterhouse workers with blood still wet on their clothes, their skin glowing with sweat, speak with sensitivity, or about the impossibility of sensitivity. The camera is their psychoanalyst’s couch in this film that starts out as a playful portrait series and becomes an exploration of what it means to be a father.
-
LEAD (BAEA)
Directed by Terra Long / British Columbia, Canada / 19 mins
In the depths of winter, at an animal rescue center on the pacific coast of Canada, a team of rehabbers treat bald eagles suffering from lead poisoning so that they can be released back to their environment. The film gently follows a difficult season and the perennial tension at the core of the rehabbers code of ethics: how to care for wild animals in a human environment while maintaining the dignity and wildness of the animal.
-
CHLORINE (Public Pool)
Directed by Elizabeth Lo / USA / 13 mins
In the USA, swimming pools have long been contested sites of privilege, class, and race – serving as both symbols of wealth and excess and as reprieves from the ever-increasing heat for the urban poor. This observational portrait of one of the few remaining public pools in the heart of Los Angeles becomes a visual celebration of public spaces as well as a meditation on family and the luxury of leisure.
-
HELIUM (Victoria)
Directed by Sam Soko / Kenya / 12 mins
Victoria is on a new journey in life. She set up a helium balloon business in Nairobi as a means of surrounding herself with joy, as well as finding security after escaping an abusive relationship. Five years later, she is redefining her existence as a daughter, a mother and a woman.
-
SILVER (Family Fortunes)
Directed by Mila Turajlić / Serbia / 11 mins
In their Belgrade home, a daughter reluctantly participating in her mother’s ritual cleaning of the family silver turns into a reflection on how the objects we preserve embody our passage through times of war, displacement and revolution and explores the transmission of heritage and family folklore.
-
SODIUM (No Mean City)
Directed by Ross McClean / Northern Ireland / 15 mins
Two workmen and an apprentice navigate Belfast at night, replacing old sodium street lights with LED. Beneath their glow, the city grapples with change, as progress marches on.
-
ZINC (Memento Mori)
Directed by Ainara Vera / Spain/Italy / 9 mins
As rhythmic machines press zinc sheets into coffins, factory workers reflect on their own mortality. Memento Mori turns the hum of a coffin factory into a lyrical call to embrace life before it slips away.
