“Hungry” Making Waves on the Awards Circuit

Big congrats to Hooligan Editor Peter Mostert and the team behind the short film "Hungry," which recently won a Bronze Cresta Award in the Viral Video category, and Silver honors at the Side Show Awards. Directed by Linda Notelovitz, "Hungry" tells the story of a whimsical South African woman named Cynthia, who has lived with homelessness and addiction from the age of 14.

Conceived to address the glaring issue of poverty and homelessness in South Africa, the idea for the film was to transform Cynthia into a fashion model and explore what her outer transformation would represent. In bringing Cynthia’s story to life in post, Mostert used a mixture of stills and moving footage to create a rhythm reminiscent of a fashion shoot, freezing on poses and moments that captured Cynthia’s essence.

“I was struck with nostalgia viewing the dailies,” says Mostert, a South African expat who now lives in New York City. “The images in this film have a truly African feel and reminded me of the hand-painted billboards and shopfront advertising still seen in Africa to this day.”

Mostert inflected that nostalgia into the visual language of the film, with glitches, old film scratches, and a curved 4:3 ratio reminiscent of an old television to frame the content. Harkening to silent films, he also added handwritten typography to reinforce Cynthia’s poetic words and bring clarity to the dialogue.

“I always try to incorporate subtle visual techniques to enhance a particular feeling I get from the footage,” says Mostert. “In this case, it was Cynthia's sweet, honest and giving spirit and the urban nature through which she expresses herself.”