Turbine

The scouts

A war pilot with a turbine for a face and a wife who chooses love anyway—this is the kind of premise that sounds like a fever dream pitched by someone who'd never make it past a studio notes meeting, and Alex Boya had the audacity to actually film it. The surrealism isn't window dressing here; it's doing the emotional work, which is exactly what subversive cinema should do.

Boya's 8 minutes exist in clear conversation with absurdist theatre and surrealist cinema, yet the formal restraint—the way the grotesque central image is treated with almost domestic tenderness—gives the piece a controlled emotional temperature that keeps it from collapsing into pure spectacle. The editing and framing decisions suggest a filmmaker aware of how to make the impossible feel lived-in.

The crucial move here isn't the turbine itself, but the decision to play the wife's acceptance straight—no winking, no camp—which transforms a high-concept gimmick into something genuinely moving about what we're willing to love despite its brokenness. That tonal commitment on a small budget is what elevates this from concept to cinema.

Festivals

• Ottawa International Animation Festival 2018, Special Mention
• NYC Shorts, Best Animation Short