GRANN
2026 · 2m
Directed by Perle Desgranges, Benjamin Chamarre
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, family
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
After his grandmother's death, a young photographer finds refuge in a letter she left him; through her words he finds the strength to face his father's gaze, who does not understand his art.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a grief letter film — a form so well-trodden that even two minutes feels like walking a maze someone else drew. The premise wants to subvert the father-son gaze dynamic but ends up reinforcing it, which is either accidental or invisible, and I can't tell which is worse.
There's a deliberate restraint here that honors the epistolary tradition while anchoring it in contemporary visual language; the interplay between grandmother's voice and photographic image suggests a lineage running through Chantal Akerman and Agnes Varda, though the execution doesn't quite reach their formal precision.
Two minutes to transmit intergenerational understanding through a letter—the film's entire architecture hinges on whether that voice-over lands as genuine inheritance or saccharine comfort, and whatever choice Desgranges and Chamarre made in the dubbing or the edit rhythm is what determines if this transcends its modest premise.