Pillow Fortress
2023 · 19m · USA
Directed by Zander Coté
Genres: drama
Tones: dark, tense, theatrical
Two old friends, Bart and Tommy, are thrown together as strangers only to realize their paths crossed in childhood — but their memories of a bed-wetting incident sharply diverge, turning a casual reunion into an unsettling confrontation over who owns the truth about the past.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Two grown men's casual hang collapses over whose version of a bed-wetting story is true — Alex Karpovsky's reliably uncomfortable energy makes this the kind of small chamber piece I'll sit with. Carnage in miniature, no marriage required.
Carnage compressed into a single contested childhood memory, with Alex Karpovsky lending it indie-theater bona fides — the chamber-piece logic of Tape applied to the politics of remembering. A small gesture that can hold real weight if the dialogue earns it.
Karpovsky and Timothy Nordwind anchoring a hangout film that slow-burns into a memory dispute is exactly the kind of two-hander where casting is the script — and the bed-wetting kernel is a smart, embarrassing-enough anchor. Nineteen minutes is the right runtime to let the discomfort accumulate.
Reviews
Much like a memory we can't quite piece together, Pillow Fortress shifts and transforms as it unfolds. What begins as a laid-back hangout film gradually morphs into something far more unsettling.
Pillow Fortress is a dialogue-driven, character-focused film powered by some compelling performances.
Festivals
- BFI London Film Festival 2025
- Hamptons International Film Festival 2025