Made in the United States and with a relatively tight budget, the three-minute short film Super Fix is written, produced and directed by Mofieni Iniya. The film, which takes place in a single sequence, pictures a slice of Lily's life, a girl who seems to be living alone and her friends are worried that she might hurt herself. Iniya has tried to be in control of the location and the tools her medium offers by concentrating on a confined space. She previously produced two short films, The Time of Your Life and Made of Money before making Super Fix.
The goal of a short is to convey the most in the shortest duration of time. It aims at narrating a story and developing its rise, climax and fall in a few minutes in a way that enables the audience to relate with it in that short time. In very short films called MICRO FILMS, the running time becomes even shorter and the filmmakers restrict themselves to a very short period of time, during which they have to introduce the characters, show how they are related, advance the story, and come to a conclusion without leaving anything incomplete or unresolved. Iniya introduces us to her main character, Lily, in this limited time span. Lily is a girl who struggles with loneliness and, seemingly, depression. She comes out of the toilet, having an empty fishbowl in hand. Obviously upset, Lily is neither willing to eat her dinner nor to play. She puts a knife on her wrist and at that very moment her friends arrive. The audience learns from their conversation that they may have been roommates before. Lily is a proud girl who does not like to accept help. To change her mood, Chris and Jack try to get her out of the house. Lily prefers to stay home and refuses their invitation. The filmmaker tries to reveal the connection between these three people and Lily's inner world in this argument sequence.
One of the distinctive merits of the film is the tone which moves between seriousness and humor. The movie starts with a more somber, but the solemn atmosphere of the film gives way to the comic soon after. This becomes absolutely clear to the audience in the scene between Jack and Lily. The fact that the filmmaker can move between these two tones how her command of the craft is unique and remarkable. She knows how to work with her three actors in a confined space and how to direct them to make the film believable in a limited period of time so that their relationships become clear, understandable, and believable to the viewer.
Short films are a well-known medium in the world today, and there are countless short film festivals around the world. The world's major festivals show short films in addition to feature films, and these shorts receive their own awards. The first films in the history of cinema were also short films. The fact that great filmmakers such as Giuseppe Tornatore, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ken Loach, Alain René, etc. started filmmaking with short films confirms that the short film arena is an arena of learning and gaining experience. Short films create a window of opportunity for the filmmaker to experiment with various ideas, and later implement them efficiently.
Super Fix is a film that you have to watch many times to understand its deeper meaning, which is loneliness. The connection between the fishbowl and Lily's unhappiness, the response she gives when invited to go skiing, and Jack's arrival are all suggestive of a shared past between the three to which the filmmaker makes indirect references. Super Fix is outstanding, and it is hoped that Mofieni Iniya will appear much better making her future projects. Filmmakers like Iniya know how to expand their horizons and make progress, and this is quite evident from the brevity and coherence of Super Fix.