Waste Days
2014 · 13m · España
Directed by Eloy Calvo Campos
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, thriller
Friends Pau and Alex risk friendship through constant competition, then risk lives inside Pau's parents' car. Rules stay simple: close eyes, drive, and count aloud.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A game of chicken that strips friendship down to its stupidest, most honest core—two kids literally blinding themselves to prove something neither can articulate. It's the kind of premise that makes you wince because it works, and nobody else would've trusted it.
Calvo Campos deploys restraint with surgical precision, letting the mounting tension speak through sound design and reaction shots rather than spectacle; the film knows exactly which tradition of youth transgression cinema it's in conversation with, and it earns its place there.
The decision to keep the camera fixed on their faces during the drive—catching micro-expressions of fear and complicity in real time—transforms what could've been reckless teenage posturing into something genuinely unbearable and intimate.