Two People Exchanging Saliva
2024 · 36m · France
Directed by Natalie Musteata, Alexandre Singh
Tones: absurdist, melancholic, sensual, surreal
In a dystopian society where kissing is a capital offense and commerce is transacted through ritual facial slaps, a wealthy housewife named Angine becomes dangerously transfixed by Malaise, a young department store saleswoman. Their forbidden attraction unfolds over nine days before the state's logic of repression destroys what they might have become.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A work of genuine conceptual architecture — Musteata and Singh have built a complete civilization from a single taboo, achieving what the best Buñuel shorts aspired to: an absurdist premise held to such rigorous logical consequence that it becomes devastating.
Thirty-six minutes of a Lobster-knockoff dystopia where you pay for groceries by getting slapped — and yet The New Yorker is calling it a 2026 Oscar winner. Vicky Krieps and Zar Amir Ebrahimi do not show up for nothing; I'll watch with arms folded but I'll watch.
2026 Oscar winner, 36 minutes, and a dystopia where commerce runs on ritual slaps and kissing is capital — Singh and Musteata commit to their one inversion so absolutely that Vicky Krieps and Zar Amir Ebrahimi orbiting Luàna Bajrami in this absurdist Paris feels closer to Buñuel than Lanthimos. The conviction of the worldbuilding is the engine.
Reviews
Musteata and Singh suspend us in a state of desire and longing, the thwarted kind.
Festivals
- Telluride Film Festival 2024
- AFI Fest 2024, Grand Jury Prize – Live Action Short
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2025, Audience Prize and Canal+ Award
- San Francisco International Film Festival 2025, Golden Gate Award and Mid-Length Film Award
- Academy Awards (98th) 2026, Winner – Best Live Action Short Film