Holy Moses
2019 · 10m · USA
Directed by Eli Powers
Tones: contemplative, mythic, tense
A pregnant nun in 1960s Northern Ireland and a Texas gas station attendant 25 years later are linked by an inexplicable supernatural event. Both have to sit with what they witnessed and decide whether to call it God or trauma.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A nun, a gas station, and twenty-five years of silence — this is the kind of swing most shorts are too cowardly to take. I'll give Powers credit for treating belief as a haunting rather than a hashtag.
Powers reunites the First Reformed alumni for a no-budget two-decade faith puzzle shot across Ireland and West Texas — A Ghost Story scale ambition. The reach is admirable; whether the cow-miracle pivot reads as profound or precious depends on the day.
The First Reformed alumni reunion (Seyfried, Ettinger, Sadoski) in a two-part faith puzzle shot across Northern Ireland and West Texas, with a snowy-field metaphysical incident involving a cow as the connective tissue — that's a serious cast committing to a real swing. 25-year span in a short is structurally ambitious.
Reviews
An ambitious mood piece nailed down by a wealth of evocative visuals and great performances.