Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting is a Depression Era coming-of-age fable, set in an alternate 1930s where there exists a long-standing cultural paradigm that mothers take their adolescent daughters on a sacred rite-of-passage hunt to slay a mythical beast under maternal supervision.

From start of pre-production to the film’s premiere at Sundance 2025 (as one of just 21 US Narrative Shorts Films) was a painstaking four-plus year journey that enlisted a hand-picked team of international VFX artists whose collective filmographies span Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter, LOTR and Avatar universes.

These talented artists worked on weekends and after-hours to slowly bring a big vision to the screen on a very small indie-film budget, where the biggest currency was time and patience.

Ladies and gentlemen, Alex Thompson’s Oscar-qualifying short film EM & SELMA GO GRIFFIN HUNTING is a Depression Era coming-of-age fable, set in an alternate 1930s where there exists a long-standing cultural paradigm that mothers take their adolescent daughters on a sacred rite-of-passage hunt to slay a mythical beast under maternal supervision.

On this hunt, daughter Em (Hereditary breakout & Tony-winner Milly Shapiro) doesn’t see eye-to-eye with mother Selma’s (Pollyanna McIntosh, AMC's Walking Dead) dogmatic adherence to darker aspects of this ritual, and tensions soon boil over.

The team behind Em & Selma set out to craft a dark, poetic fairy tale with an underlying transgressive streak and arthouse filmmaking sensibilities to balance out its broader fantastic elements.

When I first saw this film, it blew me away because it was black and white, more of a noir-look which adds so much depth to the characters, the landscape, but also the story. The story is dark too.

The visual effects and cinematography are stunning and they should be when you have visual effects artist who have worked on Superman, The Marvels and even Avatar.

The story itself as I said is dark. The interactions between Em and Selma tell a much deeper story and one I was not expecting. It’s like watching three short films in one. You have the Griffin creature and the tiny flying ones, you a mother taking her daughter on a hunt as a right of passage, but Selma’s backstory starts to come into view in a very dark metaphorical way.

Everything about this film was brilliant. Add actresses Pollyanna McIntosh from The Walking Dead and new actress Milly Shapiro, and you have a stunning film.

I could go on and on about this film and only one of two absolute original short films this year that dared to go all out with the storytelling and cinematography.

Took four years to make this film and it was worth the wait.

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