Bisected
2023 · 8m · USA
Directed by Danny Pineros
Tones: contemplative, tense
In the California desert, a couple on a lonely highway witness a meteor crash that catapults them into parallel dimensions, forcing them to navigate separate realities as they try to find their way back to one another.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Pineros takes the cosmic-horror-as-relationship-metaphor that a dozen other shorts have already mined and... doesn't really subvert it, which is frustrating because the no-CGI constraint had real teeth. The premise wants to be weird but plays it surprisingly straight.
A formally considered piece that situates itself thoughtfully within the sci-fi tradition—the use of practical effects and in-camera techniques anchors the dimensional conceit in tactile reality, and the editing rhythm mirrors the couple's fractured reality with deliberate restraint.
That choice to stage interdimensional horror entirely through practical, in-camera work rather than leaning on post—using mirrors, doubles, blocking, timing—is what makes this breathe; it's a constraint that becomes the film's language, and Pineros commits to it completely.
Reviews
An idea that could go places.
Feels extremely proof of concept but I would immediately watch the feature.
Festivals
- Sitges Film Festival 2023
- Cleveland International Film Festival 2024
- Queens World Film Festival 2024
- London Breeze Film Festival 2024