An Emotional State
2025 · 2m
Directed by Andy Lambert
Genres: dark comedy, drama, satire
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, darkly comic
Inside the Oval Office the President has a moment of lucidity. A minimalist micro-short with no dialogue and no camera movement, told with dry humor.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A president having a moment of lucidity is almost *too* on-the-nose for political satire, but the refusal to move the camera or crack a smile about it—that's genuinely weird in a way that makes the dry humor land harder than it should.
The constraint is classical: stillness as formal rigor, silence as tradition inherited from Beckett and minimalist theater, a two-minute study in the grammar of political restraint that knows exactly what it's doing with each held frame.
Two minutes, no dialogue, no movement—and somehow the entire weight lands on one performance choice, likely just the President's face registering something true; that's the decision that either kills it or makes it sing, and Lambert clearly trusts the actor completely.
Reviews
Andy Lambert erstellt seit Jahren minimalistische Kurzfilme unter dem Reihentitel „The Mute Series“. Dieses Jahr hat er bereits mit „The Prisoner“, „An Emotional State“, „Stop“ und „Clinical Intervention“ vier neue Geschichten veröffentlicht, die allesamt ohne Dialog und Kamerabewegung auskommen.