Bobby’s stomach is upset. She is ravenous. Normally, dinner should be on the table by now. But today everything is different. Mum lures her teenage daughter out of the house with a lie and takes her to hospital, where her relatives are already waiting. All dressed in black, with tears in their eyes, expressing their sympathy. But sympathy for what? Before Bobby realises what is going on, she is dragged into the endless corridors of the clinic by rude nurses, undressed and prepared for an operation she knew nothing about and never consented to.
Behind the scenes of this nocturnal horror trip, a disturbing tale about the relationship of trust between parents and children is revealed. Mansi Maheshwari’s genre mix of thriller, scary vision and educational satire is fascinating. Its dynamic design, dramatic animation and mesmerising soundtrack send us deep into a terrifyingly exquisite nightmare that lingers on.

The winter’s night draws its last breaths in the milky amber glow of the street lights. Snowflakes trickle down, the camera slowly circles a small guardroom in a driveway. Night after night, this lonely island is occupied by: Nobody. As a security guard in the cold, he guarantees the safety of the warm homes and their owners. He passes the time with a recalcitrant oil radiator, a calendar girl on a green meadow and his meandering thoughts. His security logs serve as a seismograph of reflections on life and nightly rounds of the square. Nobody is wrapped in a shell of coolness grown over a long time, which makes it hard for him to react to a rare smile the way he would like to in his heart.
Nadia Hallgren and Jamie-James Medina condense an autobiographical short story by artist and musician Willis Earl Beal aka “Nobody”. The actor Michael K. Williams, who died in 2021, lent his voice to this inner monologue and gives it a sleepy, melodious sound. In this very cinematic, melancholy piece in a state of limbo, casual observations open a philosophical cosmos. But every time the journey of the mind crashes on the tarmac of the carpark in front of the block of flats.

Lines scrawled on white paper with a ballpoint pen. Everything looks like a hastily drawn scribble – a sketch of ideas rather than a finished film, possibly only a quick storyboard. The jerkily connected images show a food stall somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Something extraordinary happens here: Two filmmakers – brother and sister – hire the chef as the leading actor of their project. They are planning a biopic about their father. The fast-food expert is not only the spitting image of the famous man, he is just like him! The casting could not be more apt, the film business newcomer lets them convince him. But the task turns out to be difficult. Though the cook does everything to do justice to this demanding role, he seems less and less suited for the job every day. Completely engrossed in the preparations for the part, he becomes increasingly distant from his own children. The boundaries between the film and the single father’s real life begin to blur. Is it possible that shooting has already begun?