drama - The Film Verdict

Maze

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 23, 2025 | Festivals, Busan 2025 |

Grief is the thing in Maze, Shin Sun’s subdued drama about a trio of people processing loss. An understated but absorbing meditation on guilt and recrimination.

Mouse

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 11, 2025 | Festivals, Oldenburg 2025, Verdict Shorts |

Paranoia and past trauma come to bear in Mouse, Rosie Barrett’s short small-town drama infused with an impressive, slowly building tension.

Broken Voices

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 10, 2025 | Festivals, Oldenburg 2025 |

The insidiousness of abuse is expertly explored in Broken Voices, a restrained but devastating loss-of-innocence drama from Ondrej Provaznik.

At Dawn

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 16, 2024 | Festivals, Oldenburg 2024, Verdict Shorts |

An elderly man savours the small things on what might be his final day alive in Antonin Bonnot’s patient and touching short, At Dawn.

Alone Together

Posted by Ben Nicholson | Sep 14, 2024 | Festivals, Oldenburg 2024, Verdict Shorts |

A checkpoint stop en route to Tehran leads to a young boy being held for drug possession. A moral quandary ensues in the emotive short, Alone Together.

Tag: drama

Maze

Mouse

Broken Voices

At Dawn

Alone Together