(Taylor's Version)
2023 · 6m · India
Directed by Pranav Bhasin
Two men grapple with their love lives by posing as Taylor Swift fans — a conversation about masculinity that starts as a joke and ends somewhere unexpectedly honest.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Two Indian men access their feelings via Taylor Swift — sounds twee, but the director's confessional about his grimmest friend blurting 'I love Taylor Swift' is honest enough to make me curious. Could be the rare sincere wink.
Using Swift's persona as a philosophical lens for two repressed Indian men is a charming premise, though the five-minute runtime and lack of festival pedigree suggest a sketch rather than a complete formal gesture. Honest about its own register.
5:44 mumblecore-Bollywood conversation piece — that runtime forces every beat to count, and the conceit of using Taylor Swift as the unlocking pretext for masculine repression is a clever back-door into a real emotion. Without more craft signal on the page, taking the writer-director-editor solo credit as a sign of voice control.
Festivals
- Blackbird Film Festival 2024