One of two winners of the Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Award at the 2014 Heartland Film Festival, an award that includes a $2,500 cash prize, writer/director Johnny Ma's 19-minute short film is a surprisingly effective character study that proves that strong characters and a good story can be told well within the confines of a short film.

Recreated from the memories of his 10-year-old son, Grand Canal's story follows a Chinese boat captain as he tries to collect a debt that will save his fleet of boats. Caught between the needs of his family and a difficult harbor master, the captain is faced with a life-changing decision.

Described as a Greek tragedy told through Chinese pop music, a description that makes me chuckle yet strikes me as accurate, Grand Canal is an emotionally honest short film about a father-son relationship and those difficult choices we face in life and, as well, those times in life when it seems as if we may not even have a choice. While the production values don't quite always live up to the story itself, on a certain level it's this quality, which may very well have been an artistic choice, that gives the film part of its quiet ordinariness that makes it even a bit more effective.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic