Maman, dis
2026 · 2m
Directed by Maëlie Vitasse
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, family
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Leila, who herself endured harassment in her youth and still carries its traces, tries to be a model of strength and inspiration for her daughter — never imagining for an instant that one day the roles might be reversed.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise wants to be a neat inversion—daughter becomes protector—but it plays it safe, landing exactly where you'd expect a film about intergenerational trauma to land. Nothing here resists the emotional beats; it just executes them competently.
Vitasse situates this squarely in the lineage of intimate family portraiture, and the two-minute constraint forces a formal discipline that many longer dramas fail to achieve—the melancholic restraint feels earned, not affected.
That reversal—the moment the daughter steps into strength—lives or dies on a single look or gesture, and whatever Vitasse chose in the edit, in the performance, in the sound design at that pivot, it's the decision that makes this 120 seconds matter.