Just Go
2017 · 10m · Latvia
Directed by Pāvels Gumennikovs
Inspired by a true story, a young Latvian man in a wheelchair pursues two thieves through the streets of Riga after they rob the girl he loves, determined to recover her handbag at any cost.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the wheelchair-user-as-inspiration-porn setup, and Gumennikovs just... doesn't do that — instead he makes a genuinely propulsive revenge thriller that happens to star a real athlete, which is exactly the kind of genre inversion most scouts are too cowardly to greenlight.
The formal restraint here is remarkable: a 9-minute action film that never indulges in sentiment or spectacle, instead letting the architecture of pursuit and Ronis's presence do the work, placing it squarely in the lineage of Dardenne-style neorealist drama with genre bones.
Gumennikovs's single masterstroke is casting Ronis not as a symbol but as a subject — his actual athleticism and street knowledge become the film's propulsive engine, and that choice of authenticity over artifice transforms what could've been a tired premise into something that actually moves.
Reviews
Robbed in a Wheelchair... Gets Revenge
Such a cool story, with a crazy cool action scene by an incredibly talented man, showing anyone can do anything if they really want. The ending is also hilariously perfect.
Latvian short Just Go! among finalists for Manhattan Short film festival
Festivals
- Academy Awards 2018
- Manhattan Short Film Festival 2017, Best Actor (Aleksandrs Ronis)
- HollyShorts Film Festival 2017, Best Romantic Film
- Isfahan International Festival of Films for Children and Youth 2017, Golden Butterfly for Best Short
- Heartland Film Festival 2017
- Brooklyn Film Festival 2017