À portée de main
2026 · 2m
Directed by Matthias Waldinger
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, tender
Maxence, a discreet and solitary student, goes through his university days withdrawn into his bubble, until an unexpected encounter and a new friend gradually lead him to lift his head and open up to others.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A shy student makes a friend and opens up—it's basically every coming-of-age short ever made, which means Waldinger had to do something genuinely weird with form or tone to justify its existence, and I don't see it.
Two minutes of tender introspection that sits comfortably in the European art-film tradition; the restraint is admirable, though the narrative arc feels ancestral to a dozen Dardenne-school pieces we've already canonized.
The entire film turns on a single moment—likely a glance, a gesture, the precise rhythm of how Maxence's posture shifts when acknowledged—and if Waldinger nails that micro-behavioral choice, a generic premise becomes a study in how attention transforms loneliness.