The current cycle of sword-and-sandal films has been riding the wave of the success of Gladiator since 2000, and its end has been projected many times. In the introduction to his edited anthology Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword & Sandal Film, scholar Michael G. Cornelius projected that these films, hereafter referred to as neo-peplum films, were already seeing a periodic decline in 2010/2011. After Gods of Egypt (2016) had performed poorly at the box office, Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter noted that other recent neo-peplum films such as The Legend of Hercules (2014) and Pompeii (2014) had also performed under expectations, thus also mimicking Cornelius’ thoughts that the cycle was in a rut.
There have been so many wonderful films at this year's HollyShorts Film Festival, but the second Documentary block had some of the most moving films of this year's festival. These documentaries, while short, were incredibly powerful and very entertaining.
This year's HollyShorts Alumni block had a huge variety of different films of all genres. This selection ran the gamut between funny and scary, heartbreaking and powerful, and everything in between.