The Time Tree
2018 · 20m
Directed by Celine Cotran
Genres: coming-of-age, fantasy, historical
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
A deaf girl in 1596 discovers an oak that opens onto the present day, where literacy gives her a new confidence.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a genuinely strange premise—time-slip portal oak in 1596, deaf protagonist, literacy as liberation—but the execution feels too gentle, too earnest to really *commit* to the weirdness. Wants to be experimental but settles for whimsical.
Cotran situates herself thoughtfully in the tradition of magical-realist coming-of-age cinema, and the formal restraint—knowing when *not* to overwhelm the central metaphor—shows real curatorial instinct about how to honor both the historical and fantastical registers.
The decision to ground a deaf character's entire arc through written language rather than voice or gesture is where this lives or dies, and Cotran commits to it so completely that what could've been a gimmick becomes the whole emotional architecture of the film.