LE PACTE
2026 · 2m
Directed by Cycy Raw
Genres: crime, drama, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Lila, a young mother with a heavy prison past, applies to the only company willing to hire former detainees in order to build a better future for her child — but the firm hides strict, mysterious rules.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Prison redemption + corporate thriller is basically Hallmark territory, except Raw seems to actually understand that 'mysterious rules' is where the real horror lives — still, it needs to earn that premise in ways most shorts don't bother with.
The tension between social-realist character study and genre mechanics shows formal awareness, though the question is whether Raw resolves that friction or just lets it hang; either way, there's a lineage here worth tracing — from kitchen-sink drama to contemporary noir.
Two minutes is brutal for this premise, but the specificity of the 'mysterious rules' angle — that the company's oppression isn't malice but system — lives or dies on one or two moments of Lila's face recognizing the trap, and if Raw nails that micro-choice, the whole thing scales up.