L'Empreinte
2026 · 2m
Directed by Majdoulyne Bounif
When Alicia steals her sister's last ice cream, her sister does not react as she would have expected.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A two-minute short about stolen ice cream sounds like the most aggressively wholesome premise imaginable—which is exactly why Bounif's decision to subvert the expected tantrum into something absurdist actually lands; the film knows what you're bracing for and refuses to give it to you.
Bounif demonstrates formal control in miniature, the editing rhythm of those 120 seconds suggesting restraint and understatement that recalls the économie of Rohmer or early Koreeda—a film aware it's working in the tradition of small domestic moments elevated by precision.
The entire architecture of this film rests on one moment: the sister's reaction, or rather its absence, which reframes the whole dynamic with a single beat—that choice to let silence and the unexpected non-response carry all the weight is what transforms a premise about toddler conflict into something genuinely strange and memorable.