Clermont-Ferrand ISFF Review: Water Sports (2025)
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
Labo
The Philippines is currently seeing a flow of exciting, politically engaged and highly individual short films, with works such How To Die Young In Manila (https://ubiquarian.net/2021/07/how-to-die-young-in-manila-2020/) and Cross My Heart and Hope To Die (https://ubiquarian.net/2024/06/review-cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-2023/) being just a few examples over the past few years. But whilst many of these films filtered an uncertain and surreal view of the world with a slight air of nihilism and an undertone of menace, director Whammy Alcazren (who also co-produced Cross My Heart and Hope to Die) manages to find humour and – perhaps with a slight air of irony – hope in the face of the end of the world.
After a number of festival screenings – including winning the Fantastic Fest ‘Shorts With Legs Award’ in 2025 – the film is currently screening as part of the Labo competition at the 2026 edition of Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.
A Philippines sometime in the future. The Earth roasts itself alive as the reality of climate change that we knew was coming finally arrives. The school now promotes the idea that toughness and grit will ensure the survival of the younger generation. But as they face the mess the world is now in, the madly in love Jelson (John Renz Javier) and Ipe (Elijah Canlas) begin to realise that if things are looking like they are going to be hopeless, then you might as well be hopelessly in love.
Alcazren eschews a traditional narrative for a staccato, surreal approach in which the aesthetics of YouTube and TikTok collide with the sensibilities of Derek Jarman and David Lynch, then filtered through the lenses of Filipino history and the queer experience. Scenes pop up like painterly tableaux, male bodies are both dissected by the frame and dwelt upon with a fiery desire. Then the film radiates a constant energy that is both infectious and affirming. But Water Sports is less a fever dream and more a fever scream, rallying against a system that has continually failed humanity while also lionising the human capacity for love.
Much of the film deals with the gap between ideology and reality. Empty government slogans promise little, but our protagonists’ love brings joy. The heat and the arid desert of much of the Earth promise doom and the apocalypse, but there’s always a sense of wild abandon and unfettered glee here that suffuses the entirety of the film. In many ways, it’s this sense of refusal to let the end of the world diminish the human experience that holds the entire film together. In lesser hands, the film would fly apart at the seams, the sum of its disparate parts never quite cohering. But Alcazren orchestrates a method behind the madness, and it all hangs together. And for all the extremities that the film vacillates between, the central love story actually turns out to be quite sweet and affecting.
In a world that seems to have gone increasingly mad, it sometimes needs an equally mad response. But as crazy as it can get, Water Sports offers a bold and brassy retort to the malaise of modern times.
Year: 2024
Country: Philippines
Runtime: 19 mins
Director: Whammy Alcazaren
Producer: Alemberg Ang, Mara Ravelo Bernaldo
Production company: Daluyong Studios
Art Design: Ana Lou Sanchez, Whammy Alcazaren
Sound Design: Danjo Galapon
Editor: Carlo Francisco Manatad
Music: Caloy Soliongco, Sage Ilagan, obese.dogma777
Cast: Elijah Canlas, John Renz Javier, Ricky Davao, Bon Andrew Lentejas
Distribution: Square Eyes
