In part 2 of a blog series I’m calling a series of posts on shorts (well I am and it is), we’re looking at another jewel amongst so many, in the crown that was and is Bolton Film Festival.

As discussed in part 1 – Bolton Film Festival -presenting a short series of posts on shorts – Part 1: Bear – the Festival has been going for 7 years. is BIFA and BAFTA accredited, and brings with it 300 short films including 42 World Premieres, 20 European premieres and 77 UK premieres.

The in person portion of the proceedings was last week in, of course, Bolton, but you can still catch the online showings until 22 October. This I urge you to do most passionately.

Following Part 1 where I talked all things Bear, this week I want to talk about The Group.

The Group

Louise Ford (UK)

How far will a group of women go to get an unsuspecting new parent to join their WhatsApp group?

This comedy-horror (don’t grimace comedy purists and horror purists alike – have you never seen League of Gentlemen) stars Sian Brooke and Julie Hesmondhalgh, and the short film’s description alone will send shivers down the spine of many a parent.

Now I can’t relate on the parent front, but live vicariously through my friends who can, and have been privy to many a meltdown over their respective school mum WhatsApp groups, as they live their lives at the behest of the latest meandering conversation and bulletin, dreading the next ping of their phone as talks continue into the night on the latest classroom fundraiser and salacious school-run drama.

I shall withhold the names of my sources to protect their privacy.

But I have done my time in the WhatsApp groups set up for festivals, gatherings and getaways alike (and at times been the worst one in there when getting overexcited) so I consider myself paid up and ready to relate.

The Group takes us into the world of Lucy (Brooke – who I love in every screen iteration), a mother who once again finds herself rushing through the playground, dropping off her son late, much to the chagrin of the bitingly funny Hesmondhalgh’s sarcastic teacher and guardian of the school gates.

The chastened Lucy, head down, tries to run the gauntlet of the circle of school mums as she attempts to leave the compound, batting off requests to involve herself in the latest WhatsApp thread which she’s successfully ignored up until now online. And she almost makes it until she finds herself referring to one of the mums as ‘Boring Helen’, a moniker usually reserved for her own private musings.

It’s the first of many mistakes our Lucy makes, the second being climbing a van as she finds herself kidnapped and driven to a secret location, then held captive by the group who it is revealed know all about each one’s own special nickname bestowed upon them by their victim (let’s just say ‘boring’ is one of the milder adjectives).

Joining our band of mothers emerges Hesmondhalgh’s ‘Sally’, who not only condones the stranglehold tactics but seemingly takes a lead role in them. Before you can say, ‘World Book Day’, Lucy is strapped up and giving blood against her will (well she did miss the blood-drive) into a measuring jug, and finding herself losing both the will and her consciousness as she fights against the angry mother’s circle who are determined to hold her to account and bring her into the fold where she belongs.

And, reader, I have never been so chilled by anything as by the final scene, as we see our ‘heroine’ Lucy, back in the playground, and in a state that can only be described as Jack Nicholson in that hospital bed at the sad conclusion of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Devastating. And brilliant. It’s Motherland if Motherland was concentrated into a shot and delivered intravenously straight to the vein. And taken to an extreme. A deliciously dark extreme that only a short can deliver in under 12 minutes.

And I guess this is a cautionary tale. Ignore that WhatsApp group at your peril. It will get you in the end…

Written and Directed by Louise Ford

Cast: Julie Hesmondhalgh, Sian Brooke, Yasmine Akram, Paksie Vernon, Cat White, Sarah Daykin, Holly Burn

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Stay tuned for further posts in this ‘short’ series.

In the meantime, visit Bolton Film Festival at https://www.boltonfilmfestival.com/ for more details, including how to access the online festival running until 22 October.

The Group will be showing online, with six other shorts including Ricky Gervais’s 7 Minutes on Saturday 21 October, between 6pm and 7.30pm, as part of the UK Shorts 5 package.

You can see Bear online with three other documentaries, on Monday 16 October, between 4.30pm and 5.30pm, as part of the Doc 60 4 package.