Vanité
2026 · 2m
Directed by Naïs Chanvril
Genres: dark comedy, drama, satire
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, provocative
In a world of images where appearance counts more than personality, a luckless young person with no success is ready to jump at a miracle solution when one appears — to the point of excess, and at a price.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Vanité does the obvious thing—beauty industry satire, excess as metaphor—but does it so efficiently in 2 minutes that it almost tricks you into thinking the premise needed subverting rather than executing. The real subversion would've been making us care *why* she falls for it, not just *that* she does.
Chanvril's command of tone—balancing dark comedy against genuine dread—sits squarely in a lineage of European satirical shorts that trust visual language over exposition; the formal restraint here (what we don't see, the gaps in the narrative) recalls a thoughtfulness about how satire actually works.
The kill is almost certainly in one specific choice—whether it's the moment of application, the reaction shot, or the sound design that tips from funny to genuinely unsettling—and whatever Chanvril locked in there justifies the whole premise in under 120 seconds.