The Little Thief
2020 · 3m · United States
Directed by Nicole Vanden Broeck
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
In just three minutes and with three characters, a young boy at the market experiences guilt for the first time.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Three minutes, three characters, one moral awakening—sounds like every coming-of-age short ever made, which is exactly why I'd normally pass; but Vanden Broeck seems to know that and does something stranger than I expected.
The restraint here is classical: a child's first encounter with guilt rendered through minimal mise-en-scène and durational editing that trusts the viewer's recognition of formal precedent—Bresson or early Koreeda in miniature.
What makes this sing isn't the premise but the exact moment Vanden Broeck chooses to cut away from the boy's face, letting sound and negative space carry the shame rather than mining his expression for it—that discipline changes everything.
Reviews
By essentially picking on those seemingly insignificant gestures, she connects you with her characters, regardless of age, gender, and ethnicity. This is your childhood, after all.