La Beauté cachée
2026 · 2m
Directed by Mayssa Abdelli
Genres: comedy, romance, satire
Tones: contemplative, humorous
In a bar, a woman goes from one dating-app meet-up to the next in search of the perfect partner, and gradually realises that true beauty lies not in appearances but in what is hidden inside each person.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Dating app satire is played out, and the 'beauty is on the inside' pivot is about as subversive as a greeting card—even at 2 minutes, this feels like it's checking boxes rather than breaking them.
Abdelli demonstrates tonal control moving between comic lightness and genuine reflection, situing herself in a lineage of romance shorts that interrogate surface attraction, though the thematic throughline feels somewhat familiar in its execution.
What works here is the montage rhythm—the precise cutting between encounters that lets the pace itself become the joke, making each micro-interaction land without needing exposition, which is exactly the kind of structural clarity that transforms a simple premise into something that breathes.