Created by Joseph Horstead
A CLOSER LOOK: VIDEOGRAPHIC CRITICISM 2025 – Young video essayists comment on popular audio-visual culture. Produced as part of the BA (Hons) Film and Television degree at Southampton Solent University and brought to you by Making Waves Film Festival.
Short films are often talked about as stepping stones—early sketches for something bigger. But what happens when a short stands fully on its own? This video essay focuses on You Know Where to Find Me, a quietly powerful short directed by Sam Davis, and asks how the film creates emotional depth through simplicity and restraint.
Centred on Frankie, a young man with an intellectual disability moving into his own home, the film explores themes of independence, attachment, and the subtle tensions that come with growing up. It draws on Richard Raskin’s parameters for strong short film storytelling and shows how choices in image, sound, and structure work together to shape a compelling emotional impression.
Rather than expanding into multiple storylines, the film stays with Frankie and his mother, allowing their bond to take centre stage. Small gestures and moments—like a telephone call or a lingering look through a keyhole—carry real weight. It’s this focus that gives the film its strength: it doesn’t try to do too much, but what it does, it does with care.
The video essay positions You Know Where to Find Me as a film that isn’t aiming to be a trailer for something else. It’s a self-contained story about love, anxiety, and learning how to let go—even if just across the street.
This essay is part of A Closer Look, a series of video essays created in collaboration with Southampton Solent University and hosted by Making Waves Film Festival. Each one offers a thoughtful perspective on a piece of moving image culture, seen through the lens of emerging critical voices.
