Temporal Takedown
2026 · 8m · Norway
Directed by Martin Sofiedal
Genres: action, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: tense, theatrical
A woman with mysterious time-freezing powers infiltrates a dirty Oslo car workshop to learn about a nefarious gangster, triggering an epic time-bending fight.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Time-freezing powers in a grubby Oslo workshop sounds like it should be corny, but Sofiedal's refusal to aestheticize the premise—keeping it tense and theatrical rather than sleek—is genuinely perverse in the best way.
The theatrical staging of a sci-fi action sequence in such a constrained setting suggests a director aware of how genre formalism can be repurposed; the editing rhythm across frozen and unfrozen moments will likely be the calling card here.
The entire film hinges on whether the time-freeze effect itself becomes invisible enough to sell the emotional stakes of the fight—that single technical decision between rendering it as spectacle or as consequence is what separates this from a YouTube proof-of-concept.
Reviews
A kick ass new sci-fi short film has arrived online called Temporal Takedown, an 8-minute long action thriller about a woman taking on a group of thugs at a dirty car workshop. I can't believe they did this on such a tiny budget!
Shot in three days on a budget of about $1,800, entirely practical, with no stunt doubles, the film wears its influences openly — the choreography of The Raid and Kingsman, and the way Everything Everywhere All at Once wove its central idea directly into its fight scenes. The result lands in HollyShorts' Action program on craft alone.