Wing it!
2023 · 4m · Países Bajos
Directed by Rik Schutte
Genres: action, comedy, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, humorous, tense
A tense engineer receives the inopportune visit of an enthusiastic aspiring pilot, which causes both to be launched into the air inside an out-of-control space shuttle.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A engineer-versus-enthusiast premise that nosedives into literal chaos — the setup is almost aggressively stupid in the best way, and four minutes of escalating absurdism in a malfunctioning shuttle is exactly the kind of "wait, that's the whole movie?" energy that makes you wonder why more shorts dare to be this unserious about sci-fi.
Schutte's restraint with the visual language keeps the absurdism tethered to a recognizable comedic structure, and the editing rhythm — particularly how tension and humor trade places — shows a filmmaker aware of how timing functions in the lineage of physical comedy shorts.
The entire premise hinges on the decision to make the enthusiast genuinely, infectiously unbothered while everything falls apart around them; that tonal choice — one character's unwavering energy against mounting disaster — is what transforms a high-concept gag into something that actually lands.