Oizys
2025 · 20m · Germany
Directed by Rari Matei
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Esra drifts through an unplanned Berlin night thick with the memory of a former best friend, from club floor to funeral home. Grief paced like a slow exhale rather than a punchline.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most grief films want you to cry on cue; this one wants you to stand still in a club for twenty minutes and call that healing. Insolent in the best way.
Mourning paced as ambient nightlife rather than catharsis — Matei stages grief in the negative space between BPM and funeral parlor. The Lovers Rock comparison feels earned; this is the kind of texture I come for.
At 20 minutes Matei earns the slow exhale — grief as ambient nightlife, the club BPM and morning funeral as one continuous tissue. Berlin nightlife is well-trod terrain, but the pacing-as-mourning choice and the experiential sound-forward approach feel genuinely worked-out.
Reviews
The film moves at its own speed, allowing us to quietly observe Esra's mourning and maneuvering through the stages of grief.