Coming to Terms
2015 · 1m · España
Directed by David Bertran
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, family
Tones: contemplative, dark, tender
Eddie and Sally, aged 10 and 8, try to understand the concept of death before their father passes away, trusting in his religious teachings until the idea of eternal life in Paradise leads them to make an unexpected decision.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A one-minute film that weaponizes childhood innocence and religious comfort into something genuinely unsettling — the premise alone (kids deciding to expedite their own afterlife) is the kind of subversive gut-punch that makes you uncomfortable for days, and Bertran has the audacity to let it breathe without apology.
Bertran's economy of form here is immaculate; the film locates itself within a lineage of intimate family dramas that interrogate faith, and the restraint in execution — allowing the children's logic to unfold without melodrama — demonstrates a formal maturity rare in such compressed work.
The magic is in the editing rhythm and how the children's voices layer over one another as their understanding of Paradise crystallizes — Bertran makes a single formal choice (letting their overlapping logic build momentum) that transforms a 60-second premise into something that feels inevitable and devastating.