As part of this year’s High School Student’s Day screenings, and welcomed for general audiences, this short film set boasts an array of filmic approaches. From animation and live-action to documentary and narrative, these films serve as examples of works that achieve incredible emotional and thematic depth in spite of logistical and structural constraints of the short film form.

This first half of this set begins with three women-led narratives in Someone Special (Một người đặc biệt), Little Bird, and Thru the Wire. Every work in the opening half of “Let This Acceptance Take” remarks on presenting one’s genuine self – whether to strangers or persons we consider to be friends. From an inventively animated piece, an inspiring work of social justice, and a portrait of digital youth, our protagonists realize that this is no easy life lesson to learn.

Like its fellow woman-driven animated short Someone Special, Re:connection is this set’s midpoint, as it signifies the moment where these films begin to more literally embody this set’s title (the idea of accepting oneself or others as they are at present) into account. From Me to You reflects upon the difficult relationship between daughter and mother – the tension heightened due to the former’s impending departure for university. Finally, Threads, the sole documentary short here, looks at the Montagnard (the indigenous people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands) refugee community as they have rebuilt their lives in North Carolina. For our filmmakers, in your fair minds, let this acceptance take.

By Eric Nong