The Cancellation
2021 · 10m · USA
Directed by Alex Fabry
Genres: comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, tense
A flustered man with chronic foot pain tries to cancel his appointment with the podiatrist he's been seeing for years because nothing is actually getting better. What should be a thirty-second phone call becomes an extended exercise in passive-aggressive negotiation.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most shorts go big — explosions, crying scenes, twist endings. This one is about trying to break up with your podiatrist. That's the kind of microscopic shame I came to NoBudge for.
An entire short built around the social agony of firing a medical professional — the micro-conflict most movies cut to — is exactly the kind of unglamorous comic territory I appreciate. Curb-stakes phone calls in Jarmusch deadpan.
An entire short on the social agony of firing a podiatrist is the kind of micro-conflict most films cut to — committing to it as the whole runtime is the joke and the proof. Curb energy in a Jarmusch register.