A scene from 'Left Alone'

Screening entries for a film festival like Beaufort’s is brutally anonymous. As in, I knew nothing about any of the hundreds of filmmakers who submitted their work this year. Not their back stories, not how many other festivals accepted their films, not their “American Idol”-like tear jerking testimonies of near-death experiences and how much it all means to them.

Some entries were hand scribbled on the DVD itself in Sharpie and I couldn’t even read the handwriting. That’s the way it should be. It’s how festival-goers know that the films that made it through to the finals and begin screening on Thursday got to Beaufort strictly on their merits.

Among the ones that sailed through, easily one of the best shorts I’ve ever seen, was a piece called “Left Alone.” Here’s why. Shorts are incredibly hard to pull off. They have to have the clearest of concepts, the tightest screenwriting, to work. They don’t have the luxury of 90 minutes to convince you or to tie up loose ends. Most shorts try to say too much, cram too many stories into too few minutes.

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