La vie est ailleurs
2026 · 2m
Directed by Emmanuelle Roturier, Simon Tavares Da Costa
Genres: drama, experimental, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Coming home tonight, Dimitri prepares to leave the world of humans and devote himself to something greater: the immutable ballet of the living, orchestrated by insects.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A two-minute premise that could've been treacly mysticism instead becomes genuinely unsettling—a man choosing to *leave* humanity for insect choreography is the kind of inverted transcendence narrative that makes you uncomfortable in the best way. Everyone else would've made this precious; Roturier and Tavares Da Costa made it strange.
The film's restraint in visualizing Dimitri's communion with the insect world shows formal awareness of what experimental cinema owes to Brakhage and Tarkovsky's nature meditations, even as it refuses their romantic resolution. Two minutes is exact—any longer would collapse the tonal precision.
What elevates this from concept to film is the decision to hold on Dimitri's face *after* the choice is made, letting ambiguity live in that final expression rather than resolving into metaphor. That single beat of uncertainty makes the surrealism feel earned rather than imposed.