Vaine
2026 · 2m
Directed by Simon Bernard
Genres: drama, fantasy, horror
A young woman makes a pact with a witch — but every grace granted comes at a price.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The witch-pact premise is ancient enough that it needs a real perversion to sing—and two minutes isn't enough runway to subvert the transactional horror everyone's already expecting, so this lands in competent-but-safe territory.
Bernard channels the formal restraint of classical fairy tale cinema, letting the exchange ritual carry mythic weight through measured pacing and compositional control; it's positioned squarely in the lineage of Cocteau and Švankmajer, and the craft speaks to someone studying those traditions seriously.
The specific choice here is restraint in the visual grammar—no flashy FX to sell the supernatural cost, just a sustained close-up or a single gesture that communicates the price, which is where a two-minute film either finds its power or collapses into telling.