Ici et maintenant
2026 · 2m
Directed by Yakoub Bouhadeb
Genres: drama, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender
Locked in the digital flow of his smartphone, a man no longer sees the world around him; in a sudden surge he rejects this glass prison, takes his camera and goes out, discovering in a calm park that true beauty lies in the present moment - the light on a painter, a gaze, the immediacy of the real.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
This is basically the anti-phone screed we've all heard a thousand times—and Bouhadeb knows it, which is why he doesn't bother subverting it. A competent film that confirms what everyone already believes, which is the opposite of what gets my attention.
Formally descended from the essay-film tradition of looking and seeing (Kiarostami, Tarkovksy's meditations on attention), executed with restraint and a gentle hand; the two-minute constraint disciplines what could easily become heavy-handed messaging into something closer to a visual poem.
The decision to shoot the smartphone sequences in a degraded, glitchy aesthetic and then cut to unmediated, textured naturalism in the park—that contrast does the thematic work without narration, and it's a choice that only works if you trust the audience to read it in the cutting rhythm.