Syncing Sinking
2025 · 17m · USA
Directed by Estevan Padilla
Genres: drama
A secluded therapy session between a therapist and an at-risk patient unravels into something more dangerous as professional boundaries dissolve and power dynamics shift.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The choice to dramatize a therapy session as a slow-burn power struggle is exactly the kind of formal audacity that makes a 17-minute drama feel like it earned every second.
Therapist/patient power inversion in a single session, Funny Games comp. That's an enormous claim for a 17-minute Filmshortage feature. Tense premise, unproven execution.
Single-therapy-session destabilizing the healer/patient dynamic is well-trod chamber-piece territory — Funny Games is an aspirational reference but the form is right. Stands or falls on the performances and whether the destabilization actually surprises.
Festivals
- San Francisco ShortsFest 2025