Held
2022 · 15m · UK
Directed by Toby Wharton
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
A teenage boy struggles to accept that he is the victim of a brutal and humiliating attack. The film explores the intersection of masculine identity, shame, and victimhood in the aftermath of gang violence.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Wharton's film earns its place in the tradition of British social realism not through spectacle but through rigorous restraint — the camera's refusal to aestheticise violence makes the protagonist's shame the only thing we can look at.
Teen-victim-of-gang-attack drama, invisible camerawork, Bolton Film Festival runner-up. Earnest, modest profile, the kind of UK shame-and-masculinity piece I've seen many times. Solid, not surprising.
Eschewing stylistic flourish for unflinching proximity to a teenage boy's private reckoning with shame after gang violence — that invisible camerawork is a real ethical-aesthetic choice. 12 minutes of restraint is harder than it sounds.
Festivals
- London Short Film Festival 2023
- Cannes Indie Shorts 2023
- British Shorts Berlin 2023
- Bolton Film Festival 2023, Runner Up, Best UK Short
- London Director Awards 2024, Winner, Best London Director
- BFI Network Short Film Showcase 2022