Elise
2026 · 2m
Directed by Thomas Machard
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
In this homage to film noir, a private detective haunted by a murder that marked him deeply sinks into an investigation where every decision leaves a trace on his conscience, as he questions whether a culprit really exists or only choices that shape our self-regard.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Noir homage is the safest move a 2-minute film can make, and this one doesn't seem interested in upending the form—it's playing the genre straight, which feels like a missed opportunity for real subversion.
Machard understands the architecture of noir deeply enough to invert its certainties; by collapsing the detective's investigation into a meditation on complicity and self-deception, he situates this within a lineage of moral ambiguity that traces back through Simenon and Polanski, executed with precise formal control.
The film hinges on a single formal choice—the blurring of investigation and introspection through editing and voice—that transforms what could be a pastiche into something genuinely unsettling about how we construct guilt.