Wabi-Sabi

A young woman begins a new romance, but what she wants from her partner is not simply love. She uses the relationship to restage painful memories from her childhood, recreating moments she has never been able to let go of, and the reenactments carry the couple toward a deadly outcome. Written and directed by Stef de Hoog, this 17-minute Hungarian short stars Emöke Zsigmond, Anita Bognár and Márta Brunner, and it approaches its disturbing premise as a serious psychological drama about grief and damage that has never healed. The title borrows a Japanese term for finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence, an idea the film turns in a darker direction as it explores how the past can take hold of the present. Intense and unsettling, Wabi-Sabi is a portrait of a love shaped by trauma, and of the harm that follows when old wounds are never faced. Recommended for mature audiences.