Bella
2026 · 2m
Directed by Bassignot Marilyne
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, tender
Thais and Lena are two inseparable teenage girls: Thais, charismatic and at ease with the world, brims with confidence, while Lena, her exact opposite - calm, introverted, withdrawn - says little; her best friend sets out to make her realise her own worth.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Two girls, one confident, one shy, one teaches the other self-worth—it's the coming-of-age template everyone's already made, and Marilyne doesn't subvert it, she just executes it competently, which means it lands nowhere.
A economical piece in the tradition of tender ensemble portraiture; the restraint in Marilyne's direction—what she doesn't show of Lena's interior life—speaks to a disciplined understanding of how cinema breathes in silence.
In two minutes, Marilyne isolates a single moment where Lena's face shifts—the exact frame where she begins to believe in herself—and that micro-performance choice is worth more than the entire premise; that's the decision that makes this work.