Jeffrey, Bad Day
2026 · 10m · USA
Directed by Theo Matza
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, melancholic
An antisocial man drags himself to the beach to help a friend scatter his brother's ashes, and his composure starts coming apart on the sand. Agoraphobia and paranoia smear the grief into something neither character is equipped to clean up.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Grief and agoraphobia is a combo most filmmakers wouldn't dare try to make funny. Matza shoots it on 16mm anyway, like he's not sure he's allowed to laugh — which is exactly why I'm in.
16mm beach-ash-scattering ritual threaded through agoraphobic anxiety until the wake feels like a panic attack — Defa awkwardness meeting early Alex Ross Perry misanthropy. A real configuration.
Shot on 16mm threading a beach-ash-scattering ritual through agoraphobic anxiety until the wake feels like a panic attack — that emotional displacement is the right structural trick. Defa-grade awkwardness is hard to fake.