I'm Sticking with You
2016 · 12m · USA
Directed by Asha Shahinian
Genres: dark comedy, drama, LGBTQ+
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic, tense
An emotionally co-dependent sister refuses to let her younger sibling leave the nest when a new job offers her a way out. What begins as clingy affection escalates into something far more unsettling as the bond between them turns toxic.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the queer sister story to go soft or confessional, so Shahinian just... doesn't—she lets the rope tighten so slowly you don't notice you're strangled until the credits roll, which is genuinely unsettling in a way most 'dark' shorts aren't.
The film sits deliberately in the lineage of intimate psychological dramas like *Marnie* or *Daughters of the Dust*, where family bonds become architectural prisons; the editing choices—those sustained takes on small refusals—demonstrate real formal patience.
The entire film hinges on one decision: never cutting away from the sister's face during the job conversation, letting us watch her affection curdle into something else in real time, and that choice does all the heavy lifting a $50K budget could never afford.