Thanks for the Memories
2019 · 11m · UK
Directed by Louis Norton-Selzer
Tones: contemplative, surreal
Joel Fink, a bored twenty-something in search of excitement, ducks into a mysterious travel agency that offers him the trip of a lifetime — at no cost, on one catch: he won't remember any of it. Forced to choose between memories and experiences, he confronts what travel, and a life, are really worth.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Norton-Selzer gets the setup right—a bit too right, actually—and the Philip K. Dick flourish feels like it's checking boxes rather than dismantling them; the real subversion would've been letting the premise *not* resolve into neat philosophical handwringing.
A classically composed thought-experiment that inherits the DNA of '60s sci-fi television and philosophical dialogues, where the mise-en-scène and measured pacing do the heavy lifting—the kind of formally disciplined short that respects both genre tradition and viewer intelligence.
The entire film hinges on whether that final choice moment—when Joel's face shifts from curiosity to something harder to name—lands as earned revelation or convenient pivot, and Norton-Selzer's commitment to holding on it, rather than cutting away, is what makes the ten minutes feel generously considered rather than slight.
Reviews
It's a shame the short is not a full feature as there's so much territory one can cover with such an intriguing concept.
A DUST Exclusive Premiere — Joel Fink is just another bored twenty-something looking for some excitement in an otherwise dull and uneventful life, until a curious encounter outside a travel agent pulls him into an unusual world.