Précieuse
2026 · 2m
Directed by Dina Pattyn
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Alice, a young woman coming of age, questions the condition of women in society; oppressed by its beauty standards, she seeks to break free of them.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Beauty-standards critique is the safest coming-of-age lane right now—everyone's doing it, and Pattyn's two-minute slot doesn't have room to twist the knife in any direction that makes you uncomfortable.
Pattyn situates herself squarely in the lineage of feminist cinema interrogating the female form, and the formal restraint of the 2-minute frame becomes the constraint that demands rigor—every compositional choice, every cut, has to earn its weight.
The question is what Pattyn does in 120 seconds that most directors can't do in twenty—whether there's one visual or sonic decision that makes the oppression feel *felt* rather than stated, or if the brevity itself becomes the filmmaker's only real choice.