Fracture
2026 · 2m
Directed by Tristan Leite Stenfort
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, satire
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
Listening to music, Lola, 16 and seeking approval, finds herself confronted with her own reflection while a presenter praises a revolutionary new beauty cream.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A 16-year-old staring down her own reflection while a beauty cream ad plays—it's the kind of on-the-nose satire that should feel like a sledgehammer, except Stenfort trusts the surrealism enough to let it breathe, which is why it actually lands where most youth-dystopia shorts crash and burn.
The film sits comfortably in a lineage of mirror-image meditations on self and image (Mulholland Drive, Showgirls' hall of mirrors), but what distinguishes it is the restraint—the contemplative pacing allows the satire to accumulate weight rather than announce itself.
In two minutes, Stenfort makes the decisive choice to let Lola's face do the confrontation rather than overlay ironic music or heavy editing—that single commitment to holding on her genuine discomfort while the presenter's voice continues transforms what could be an obvious critique into something that actually breaks the viewer's composure.