Dagas y rosas. El espíritu de las sombras
2021 · 10m · Argentina , España
Directed by Alejandro Maidana, Juan Manuel Fagetti
Genres: action, crime, thriller
Tones: dark, tense, theatrical
In Ciudad Paraíso, young Ameba and Ámbar impose their order while Ángel Nocturno, the city's most feared hired killer, moves among clans, hitmen and conspiracies orchestrated in the shadows by Director Kraft.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A 10-minute crime noir that actually commits to its theatrical fever dream instead of winking at the audience—Maidana and Fagetti build a shadow-play conspiracy so baroque and unapologetic that it makes conventional crime shorts look like insurance commercials. The fact that it works at all is the subversion.
The film positions itself deliberately within pulp and noir tradition, but the execution—layered character mythology, the orchestrated movement through Ciudad Paraíso's underworld—suggests a studied approach to genre formalism that earns its operatic tone through craft rather than pastiche.
The decision to build the entire architecture around Director Kraft as an unseen puppeteer—heard but never shown—creates a gravity that forces every other element into tighter focus; it's a constraint that costs nothing and generates everything the short needs to breathe.