Box
1m · Canada
Directed by Jamie McIntosh, Harry Cepka
Genres: drama, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A young woman talks to her grandmother across the gulf of lockdown isolation. In a minute and change, the film distills the highs and lows of pandemic solitude into a single phone call.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Seventy-four seconds. That's the whole film. Everyone else made bloated lockdown features; these two cut it down to a phone call with a grandmother and called it a day. Respect.
Seventy-four seconds of pandemic loneliness condensed into a grandmother call is exactly the kind of self-aware miniature that earns its brevity. The 'wormgirl' conceit risks preciousness but at this scale it can't outstay its welcome.
Seventy-four seconds of a lockdown phone call to grandma is a haiku of a project — either it earns the brevity or it doesn't, but the wormgirl conceit is committed enough that I trust the runtime is intentional. Hard to be enthusiastic without seeing it.