MANPOWER 4 HIRE
2025 · 12m · USA
Directed by Ella Sinskey
Genres: drama, experimental
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, surreal
A woman finds a strange rock on the beach, a landscaper has a rough week, and a man licks his girlfriend — three slivers stitched together on 16mm, tape, and other dying formats. An anecdote-shaped portrait of the in-between days.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Three unrelated vignettes shot on whatever expired stock was lying around. Somehow it edits into a mood, not a mess.
Ella Sinskey's multi-format portrait of small unusualness — the everyday-meets-uncanny mode is a Lucrecia Martel lineage, and multi-format texture can earn its keep.
Mixed-media edit across 16mm, tape, and vintage formats with no through-plot, only character vignettes — strange rocks, hyperactive boyfriends, dead hydrangeas, the in-between-days texture I always want from this register.