Cabronazi: El origen
2017 · 7m · España
Directed by Carles Valdés
Tones: darkly comic, provocative, surreal
A surreal origin story shows how the character Cabronazi came to be. Through that character, the story addresses bullying in present-day society.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A seven-minute origin myth that uses surrealism to weaponize comedy against bullying—this is exactly the kind of premise that makes consensus programmers nervous, and that's precisely why it works. Valdés refuses the easy path of straight-faced PSA and instead leans into the absurd, letting the grotesque serve the message rather than announce it.
While the satirical energy is undeniable, the film's formal vocabulary feels more rooted in contemporary viral humor than in any sustained lineage of experimental narrative—it's effective agitation, but it doesn't quite achieve the considered restraint that separates provocation from craft.
The commitment to sustained surrealism across seven minutes on what appears to be a modest budget is admirable, but the real lift comes from trusting the audience to absorb the tonal shift from origin-story absurdity into a genuine social critique without spelling it out.