Trapped
2026 · 16m · USA
Directed by Sam Cutler-Kreutz, David Cutler-Kreutz
Tones: contemplative, tense
A high school janitor named Joaquin, trying to do his job quietly, is pulled into a series of escalating and dangerous confrontations with staff and students that will not let him go unnoticed.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The Cutler-Kreutz brothers demonstrate a command of sustained tension within a single institutional location that few shorts achieve — the film's interest in the invisible labor of a janitor navigating institutional power gives it a social urgency that places it in worthy company with the Safdies' body of work.
Janitor in a high school as Uncut Gems pressure cooker — fifteen minutes of escalating institutional dread is exactly the runtime this idea wants. The Cutler-Kreutz brothers usually deliver; I'll grant the benefit of the doubt.
Confining the entire pressure cooker to a high school's corridors and utility spaces, with a Latino janitor as your pulled-into-trouble protagonist — the Cutler-Kreutz brothers are clearly working in the Safdie pocket but with a sharper class lens. Javier Molina opposite Keith William Richards (Uncut Gems) is promising casting.