Ninnoc’s pensive, sombre stare might be a burdened distraction from those big blue beautiful eyes. The echoes of children in the school halls is deliberately separate from our isolated subject. Ninnoc appears perfectly self-aware of the inner vibrations and tensions inside her head, but struggles to describe herself from the outside looking in.
The mere mentions of mental health in children is kind of heart-breaking all by itself, so Niki Padidar‘s short journey through a cloudy chunk of childhood is unavoidably affecting. Her short film scampers and caresses through these delicate notions with such endearment. All too true and in the flesh as the isolated, complex girl juxtaposes the film’s lyrical poise with her own agile limps and piercing looks.
Ninnoc dances and swings around the school classroom, corridors and gymnasium, all the while the talking head candidly recites a troubled soul who doesn’t quite fit in. Emotionally too, Ninnoc represents so many other sad children – she is perhaps more attune to it than we are – scared to show she is not as happy as those around her. The crack in the windscreen analogy coming from the mouth of someone so young yields both empathy and heartache to adult ears.
Padidar’s film, Ninnoc, is a sight to behold with the camerawork and the editing as spellbinding and graceful as its central figure. It gives the audience a real sense of nurturing impulse, all the while kind of transfixes you with it ethereal movement. Ninnoc was in the competition selection way back at the 3rd Femme Filmmakers Festival, incredibly tip-toeing away empty-handed. Some six years later, this particular reviewer can still comfortably declare this one of the very best films to feature in the event’s 9 years.
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