Fauve

Two boys are playing in an abandoned surface mine. The rule of the game is simple: who can trick whom, who can get the upper hand. One prank follows another and they keep provoking each other. Then at some point the game becomes real and there is no way back. Jérémy Comte writes and directs. It runs seventeen minutes; it is a short. The idea is the relationship of power inside a children's game. There is a constant contest for superiority between the two boys, sitting under every apparently innocent move. Comte never explains it and proceeds by showing. The location is the second character. It was shot in a real open pit site in Quebec, and the stone, the mud and the colourless expanse carry the whole feeling of the story. It took a special jury award at Sundance and was nominated for the live action short Oscar, and won widely in Canada including at the Canadian Screen Awards. The title is French and means both a wild animal and a warm colour tone, and both attach to the content. Who it is for: viewers who like the short form and quiet, hard narrative. Who it is not for: the ending is genuinely shattering and it involves children, and the film offers no consolation.