98 Seconds
2018 · 5m
Directed by Des Matelske
Genres: documentary, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, provocative
Built around the statistic that an attempted sexual assault occurs every 98 seconds in the US, this short confronts the vile nature of harassment and the dismissal of 'no'.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects a short about assault statistics to be a sermon, but Matelske actually resists the impulse—there's something formally restless here that refuses easy catharsis, which is the only honest move.
98 Seconds situates itself deliberately in the lineage of didactic essay-films, but the formal rigor of how Matelske structures time and testimony—the 98-second constraint itself as compositional discipline—elevates it beyond polemic into something architecturally considered.
The decision to anchor the entire piece to a single statistic and then build outward through fragmented testimony creates this subtle tension where the constraint becomes the thing that actually deepens rather than limits the emotional texture.
Reviews
'98 Seconds' is bound to leave you more empathetic with its moving, realistic and hard-hitting portrayal of the world we have come to inhabit. What is amazing about the film is that within a time span of just 4 minutes 50 seconds it perfectly carves out the different faces of sexual harassment, the feelings of the victims all while leaving with a universal hope of 'you aren't alone'.