Tsunami
2020 · 16m · UK
Directed by Alissa Autschbach
Two teenage girls argue in a school bathroom moments before a gunman opens fire in the hallway. Trapped in a stall, Nina must decide whether to save herself or her wounded best friend.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the shooting itself to be the movie—Tsunami correctly refuses to show you that, which is almost boring until you realize the real subversion is making you complicit in Nina's paralysis, stranding you in a bathroom stall while your best friend bleeds out, and that's genuinely unsettling in a way most 'provocative' films aren't trying to be.
Autschbach's constraint—the single stall as mise-en-scène, the sound design doing the narrative work of a conventional thriller—sits in deliberate conversation with the grammar of suspense cinema, and the formal discipline required to sustain tension through restriction rather than spectacle deserves serious consideration in this moment of visual excess.
The decision to keep the camera locked inside the stall, forcing the audience to experience the shooting through audio cues and fractional glimpses, is what elevates this from a concept into something devastating—it's a technical constraint that becomes the entire emotional engine, and watching Nina's face process what she can't see is where the film actually lives.
Reviews
An intense and suspenseful short film about a school shooting... a girl who must decide whether to find help or try to escape — ultimately choosing between saving herself or her friend.
Props to the director for knowing the small details — strong lead performance and effective cinematography carry a confrontational premise.
Festivals
- Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2021
- London Indie Short Festival 2021, Best Thriller
- Screener Short Films 2021, Best Narrative Film
- New York International Women Festival 2021