MERDE
2026 · 2m
Directed by Marie Ndong, Zachary Check
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Enzo, a young man in his twenties, sits on a bench lost in thought, doubting his legitimacy as an artist and the value of what he creates, until an unexpected encounter overturns his introspection and forces him to look at himself and his place in the world anew.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Two minutes of a guy on a bench having feelings — it's the kind of premise that makes you want to scream, except the film actually commits to the bit and trusts the encounter to do the heavy lifting instead of explaining itself to death.
The deliberate pacing and restraint gesture toward a lineage of contemplative portraiture, though the encounter mechanism feels undercooked for a film that's betting everything on its turning point.
There's a single moment—the shift in Enzo's gaze when the encounter lands—where the entire emotional architecture pivots, and that micro-choice is doing all the thematic work a two-minute film this spare can afford to do.