Psicario (Mind Heist)
2022 · 15m · Spain
Directed by Daniel Padró
Genres: crime, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: dark, melancholic, tense
A criminal who specializes in tampering with memories breaks into the home of a murder witness to alter her testimony before police questioning, but while navigating the inside of her mind he uncovers an unsettling truth about himself.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The real heist here isn't the memory tampering—it's that Padró flips the entire genre inside out by making the criminal's unraveling more interesting than the crime itself, which is exactly the kind of subversive move that makes consensus taste look lazy.
Padró demonstrates formal control in how he choreographs the descent into the witness's mindscape with the precision of someone who understands neo-noir's visual language while expanding it into something the genre hasn't quite done before.
The decision to let the twist emerge from within the victim's mental architecture rather than external revelation is elegant—it forces every production choice, from sound design to performance subtlety, to carry the weight of that single structural choice.
Reviews
Psicario nos intriga por su vertiente fantástica pero aún más por la motivación de su personaje... nos acaba conquistando con su final.
Combines noir and science fiction to create an atmospheric story of memory, identity, and melancholy.
Festivals
- Sitges Film Festival 2022
- Festival Fantàstik Granollers 2022, Best Direction
- Terroríficamente Cortos 2022, Sociograph Award for Most Shocking Short Film
- Isla Calavera Fantastic Film Festival 2023, Best Short Film
- Sombra Film Festival 2023, Jury Award for Best Short Film