El primer paso
2025 · 1m · Brasil
Directed by Samuel Rios
Tones: contemplative, tender
In Latin there is a phrase, 'solvitur ambulando' — it is solved by walking. A love story that shows how sometimes the hardest part is taking the first step.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A one-minute Latin aphorism wrapped in gauzy romance feels like the kind of tasteful restraint that makes other people nod approvingly—which is exactly why I'm skeptical. Unless Rios does something genuinely perverse with the form, this lands as pretty rather than provocative.
The philosophical underpinning—solvitur ambulando as narrative spine—demonstrates a considered approach to form, and at 60 seconds, the constraint itself becomes a formal argument about intimacy and incompleteness that echoes minimalist traditions.
A one-minute piece lives or dies on a single decision, and if Rios nailed the moment where the couple actually moves—whether it's a cut, a glance, a footstep sound—that's where tenderness becomes something earned rather than assumed.