Review | The Woman Who Feared to Vanish

In this year's edition of the SHIFT Film Festival, the Youth Jury got the opportunity to receive a free-of-charge coaching by the film critic Bjorn Gabriels who taught the basics of film analysis and how to write a good film review. Sam van Zoest's film The Woman Who Feared to Vanish was one of the 12 films which has officially been selected to the festival's Short Film Competition. After having attended the workshops, Youth Jury member Damiën Joosten reviews the film.

This short film is about a woman that wants to be seen in a world of phones, the internet, and camera's.

On a technical level, this film is amazing. Every shot consists of a camera placed in a physical object, like a dashcam, webcam or smartphone, and cuts between these in order to follow a woman throughout her daily life. The story has a nice pacing and it really asks you to discover what is about to happen, although the pacing would be a lot better if the last 2 minutes were designed differently.

The director has a good understanding of a world with broken privacy. This film had a nice feel of a short Black Mirror episode!

(c) All visual material is used with the filmmaker's permission.