Run N Gun'25: I'm Gonna Need a Bigger Word Count

With the top 20 finalists officially announced ahead of the screening gala on July 5th, I had the chance to preview four of the standout entries. Each one stands out as unique from the rest, so I was eager to know how this year's theme would tie into all of them. I also had the chance to review 2 animated ones, which I'm always delighted to do as an animation know-it-all-freak.

A ticking clock, a playing card, a famous movie line — “We’re going to need a bigger __.” And the number 10, hidden somewhere within it all. That was the unexpected creative prompt for this year’s Run N Gun Film Festival, where more than 160 filmmaking teams from across British Columbia were given just 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit a complete short film. Some were good, others were great, and the intro trailer was the best thing I've seen all year…Let's take a look.

Plague of Bricks

Plague of Bricks is one of those rare shorts that feels fully formed in both tone and message. The animation is LEGO Movie style aesthetics and movement, which I was familiar with and had positive assimilation to because I did enjoy the 1st LEGO Movie. On the surface, it’s absurd that a kingdom’s fool continues to perform despite succumbing to a mysterious bite, his body decaying as he still flips cue cards for the jeering crowd. But beneath the cartoonish comedy is a surprising amount of heart. The animation is slick and expressive, with fluid camera movement that keeps the pacing dynamic, especially during the central montage of the fool fighting for his life mid-performance. There’s a sharp wit to how the film uses physical comedy to mask and eventually reveal genuine pathos. The final gesture, when the king honours the fallen fool with a statue, feels unexpectedly moving.

Still, the short doesn’t entirely avoid cliché. The "unsung hero gets recognition in death" trope is familiar, and while it works here, I found myself wishing the resolution had pushed into more unexpected emotional territory, maybe giving the fool more agency, or hinting at what drove his dedication beyond duty. The worldbuilding also feels a little thin; we don’t really understand the stakes of the arena or why the fool’s role matters, which could’ve made the payoff richer. But even with those limitations, Plague of Bricks succeeds because it commits fully to its tone. It’s funny, weirdly sweet, and far more layered than its runtime suggests.

Asphodel Fields Forever

Watching Asphodel Fields Forever is like drifting into a half-remembered dream, one where colours bleed into each other and logic is less important than feeling. The film follows a girl yearning for access to another world, poetic, mystical, just out of reach, only to find herself barred from returning due to her mortal limitations. That core concept is simple, but it hits a deeply emotional nerve. What does it mean to be touched by inspiration you can’t grasp fully? The film’s dreamy pacing and collage-like animation style add to that feeling of liminality, layering mixed media, textures, and palettes to make the girl’s internal world vivid and aching.

That said, the short sometimes leans a bit too much on aesthetics over structure. It thrives in its mood and ambiguity, but there's a sense that it pulls back right when it should leap further. The emotional climax, her realization that she’ll never return to that other world, lands softly, maybe too softly. It could have used a starker tonal beat or even a more jarring musical shift to emphasize that loss. Still, the film stays with you. The poem is very strong and vividly encapsulating. I'd read a book of them if I could. The beginning makes a surprising circle back to the end, where you're asked as the viewer where all your potential creativity is supposed to go and how struggling with the boundaries of not fully understanding them is universal. It's a creative, melancholic piece that feels less like a conventional story and more like a visual diary of yearning. Not everything in it is fully explained, but that’s kind of the point.

The 2400

The 2400 starts like a breezy slice-of-life comedy and morphs into something sharper, a moral dilemma wrapped in one long, tension-building take. A woman arrives at her Airbnb expecting a quiet evening, only to become entangled in a chase when an immigrant sneaks in through her window while fleeing the police. The tonal shift is bold and largely effective. The early beats, including her saying “It’s safe here” just as he climbs in, are well-timed and genuinely funny. But once the police come knocking, the short pivots into a study of complicity and panic, asking what people owe each other in moments of fear. The irony behind the main characters mistreatment vs ousting the immigrant at the end was poignant and impactful.

Though the decision to rat out the man at the last second is chilling, but also slightly muddled. The abruptness works on a visceral level; it shocks you, but the motivation behind her choice is unclear. Was it a slip? A betrayal? Panic? The film doesn’t quite explore her internal conflict enough for me to really engage and the one-take format, while visually engaging, limits the emotional nuance we get from her performance. I wanted more of her perspective, a flicker of guilt, hesitation, something. Still, the premise lingers. It’s a story about how fast our empathy can dissolve under pressure, and how ordinary people can become instruments of harm without meaning to. With a bit more clarity, it could have been truly devastating.

Stolen Memories

Stolen Memories tries to pack a layered father-daughter revenge or reconciliation arc into a short runtime, but ends up feeling more like a stylized YouTube skit than a lived-in story. The plot is promising: a girl trains over the years to confront the man who stole her camera, a gift from her dad, and finally returns it to her father, using it as a symbolic gesture of reconnection. The idea of a daughter reclaiming her past and using it to strengthen an already strong relationship is interesting. But execution leans too heavily on quirky edits and overly broad performances, which dilute the emotional weight. The humour feels misplaced, especially in scenes that should carry tension or meaning. I like the moral that violence is never the answer. A testament that the girl's father always taught her, but the full circle promise to that testament felt abundant.

There’s also a logistical fuzziness that pulls focus. Why did the camera thief hang onto it for years? Why does the dad feel more like a plot device than a character? I can understand if the point of the entire short was the functionality of bizarre moments and concepts. These questions might not matter in a more abstract or stylized short, but Stolen Memories seems to want us to care, and yet doesn’t earn that care. The script’s corniness undercuts the stakes, and the emotional beats feel unearned because the relationship hasn’t been grounded. Still, you can sense ambition beneath the surface. There’s a version of this story, sharper, quieter, and more emotionally honest, that could have really landed. The disbelief of it all just didn't let me get to that point.

Overall, the shorts I was given to review had massive creative potential, and it's always so inspiring to see old and new filmmakers approach ideas with such unique and fascinating conceptions. I hope to see this type of passion and persistence every year at the Run and Gun– So congratulations to everyone for submitting!