Dope Fiend
2023 · 15m · United Kingdom
Directed by Rosanagh Griffiths
Genres: comedy, experimental, sci-fi
Tones: darkly comic, surreal, theatrical
Fran waits for her wife Nina in a medical reception before a simulation therapy session; the experience plunges her into a surreal sci-fi mindscape where five overlapping internal voices externalize her ADHD.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Dope Fiend walks the line between sci-fi gimmick and genuine formal play—the five-voice externalization could've been a cheap neurodiversity explainer, but Griffiths treats it like a compositional problem, layering ADHD as texture rather than thesis, which actually feels subversive in how it refuses to resolve into uplift.
The theatrical vocabulary here—overlapping voices, the surreal simulation space—echoes experimental cinema's interrogation of interiority (Deren, perhaps Brakhage), but what distinguishes Griffiths' approach is her restraint in the editing; the cacophony never overwhelms the frame, suggesting a lineage more rigorous than the premise initially signals.
The entire film hinges on Griffiths' decision to make the five voices genuinely simultaneous rather than sequential—a sound design choice that transforms what could be a linear narrative about waiting into a polyphonic portrait of divided attention, and that one structural call lifts a 15-minute short into something that feels authored rather than assembled.
Reviews
A sci-fi comedy which immerses the audience in a world spiked with a cacophonous and meticulously crafted sound design, multi-layered monologues and bright arresting visuals, Griffiths' film translates a sampling of her own experiences living with ADHD with truly arresting and commendable accuracy.