'Hellion' Gets Some Hot Lovin', Indiewire-Style

Short films get precious little respect from the mainstream, but we love 'em and so does every indie outlet we know. Case in point: Indiewire.com just named their "Five Hottest Shorts of the Summer" and Austin filmmaker Kat Candler's "Hellion" is prominently featured. We couldn't agree more.

Candler's an integral part of Austin's film community and has been since her 2000 debut feature Cicadas nailed the Audience Award for Best Undistributed Feature Film (arrgh!) at that year's Austin Film Festival.

Her 2006 follow-up, jumping off bridges remains one of our favorite films about kids intersecting with the often cataclysmic realities of the adult world, and her ability to combine a bittersweet tone with visuals that are simultaneously shocking and hilarious is downright sublime.

Candler's lauded short "Hellion" is, if anything, even more intense. It's the distilled essence of a filmmaker's ongoing vision, six minutes of horseplay and horror, an emotional conflagration that, despite its brief running time, lodges in your head for days afterwards. Hot hot heat, indeed.

Props to Indiewire (no strangers to the Austin film scene, they) for their spot-on inclusion of our fave angelic she-devil filmmaker. Long may she burn!

Candler's currently raising funds to shoot a new short called "Black Metal"; you can read more about the project here.