La Kilbe
2026 · 2m
Directed by Clara Esslinger
Tones: contemplative, sensual
In 1978, under the beams of a disco ball, Alice catches sight of one man across the dance floor and decides, on the spot, that she will have him.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 70s disco romance with a woman's gaze pinning a man across a floor—sounds like every other nostalgia-drunk love story until you realize Esslinger's probably doing something weirder with the premise than the setup lets on, but I'd need to see it to know if she actually commits or just coasts on the vibes.
Esslinger locates herself in a precise lineage of sensual cinema—the contemplative gaze, the disco as formal space, the economy of two minutes to build a moment of certainty—and the restraint required to hold that tension without resolution speaks to a filmmaker thinking seriously about tempo and the spaces between cuts.
The entire film probably hinges on one performance choice from Alice in that instant of decision—whether Esslinger catches a flicker of calculation, desire, or something stranger in her face—and that single micro-gesture either makes this a cliché or a revelation about want.