NOSTALGIA
2026 · 2m
Directed by Astrid Renois
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
At a party among friends, Astrid, alone and depressed, encounters a soul she has known for a long time.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A two-minute meditation on recognition and melancholy at a party—sounds like festival consensus comfort food, but Renois resists the obvious emotional beat entirely, which is either gutsy or glacial depending on your tolerance for restraint.
The formal precision here sits squarely in the lineage of Valeska Grisbach and other European minimalists who trust negative space; a controlled, brief encounter that builds its entire architecture on what *isn't* said.
The real move is the sound design—how Renois lets the ambient party noise become a kind of emotional pressure, never cutting to silence, which transforms the whole register of that encounter from romantic to almost claustrophobic.