Obsession
2026 · 2m
Directed by Villotte Evann
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Manuela lived for her reflection: day after day, an unchanging ritual devoured her time and pushed everyone else into the background, until glances, words and presences counted for less than the image she was trying to master.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A two-minute mirror-gazing psychodrama about narcissism that plays it completely straight—Evann had the chance to subvert the self-obsession premise and instead delivers the most predictable meditation on vanity imaginable, which is precisely why everyone else will champion it.
Evann's formalist restraint—the ritualistic framing, the deliberate pacing—situates this neatly in the lineage of introspective European short cinema, though the thematic territory feels well-trodden rather than newly excavated.
The brilliance here is the sound design choice: the way ambient noise gradually drowns out until only the protagonist's breath and the mirror's reflective silence remain—a single audio decision that transforms passive self-regard into genuine psychological claustrophobia.