Cicatrices
2025 · 2m · France
Directed by Serena Drescher, Hugo Benzaki
Genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
Alice works an enigmatic role inside a clandestine company, where her special power is exploited to satisfy the fantasies of a privileged clientele. Torn between the urge to escape and the need to face her reality, she fights to hold on to her humanity as her mind unravels.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Finally—a two-minute film that doesn't flinch from the perversity of its premise and actually uses sci-fi as a delivery system for psychological horror instead of window dressing. The fact that it resists explaining *what* Alice's power is, and lets the exploitation speak for itself, is exactly the kind of subversive restraint that makes consensus audiences deeply uncomfortable.
Drescher and Benzaki display considerable formal control in how they frame confinement and fragmentation—the editing rhythm mirrors Alice's deteriorating grip on self without ever becoming showy—and there's a clear lineage here to body-horror and exploitation cinema that's been considered and deliberate rather than sensational.
The decision to keep Alice's face and reactions in tight focus while the world around her becomes increasingly abstracted—that single commitment to her interiority over spectacle—transforms what could be a generic sci-fi thriller into something that actually makes you *feel* the unraveling instead of just watching it happen.