El hilo negro
2019 · 8m · Argentina
Directed by Bernardo Lorenzo
Genres: dark comedy, fantasy, horror
Tones: dark, surreal, theatrical
Old and ill Blanca Ravenna hires young Alma to help with her tasks and personal affairs; during the first night there are strange apparitions of dolls and a mysterious trunk, and by morning Blanca is rejuvenated and Alma has become a doll.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A body-swap horror-comedy that refuses to play it straight—rejuvenation through literal doll-fication is the kind of perverse logic that makes you lean forward, and Lorenzo commits to the surreal theatrical weirdness without winking. Most scouts would hedge this one; it's exactly why it's worth fighting for.
Lorenzo demonstrates formal control in the layering of domestic gothic mise-en-scène with vaudeville timing, though the tonal oscillation between horror and dark comedy risks diffusing rather than deepening the film's thematic weight.
The decision to play Alma's transformation with stillness and theatrical gesture rather than makeup or effects—holding the audience's belief through performance and production design alone—is the single choice that makes this $0-budget premise land with the force of something ten times its budget.