Guillermo del Toro’s creatures often function as vessels for human longing, loneliness, and otherness. Frankenstein follows the same emotional path. It is a story about not belonging and about the dehumanization of a being capable of feeling. Feelings, no different from those of any other character in the film. And yet the creature is never allowed to truly become part of their world. It remains an “it.” Because without a name, there can be no humanity.

This process of dehumanization does not begin with society. It begins with the creator himself. Victor Frankenstein, the obsessive scientist, who thinks only of the moment of creation, never of what comes after. The first heartbeat is not followed by care, but by shock. Not by responsibility, but by abandonment. For the viewer, this absence of empathy becomes a source of frustration.

Built from the “best” body parts of fallen soldiers and executed criminals, Victor creates something that stands in complete opposition to nature. A human being assembled by hand. To his own surprise, one who feels, who carries empathy, desire, and the ability to form genuine human connection.

People heal. At their own pace, with help or alone, more or less painfully. But one thing always remains the same: sooner or later, life around them moves on. Leaves change color, friends start families or move to the other side of the world. What remains is a swamp of memories. A mind held in suspension.

Sorry, Baby, written and directed by Eva Victor, tells the story of Agnes, a professor living in New England who is forced to navigate the aftermath of an experience entirely beyond her control and find her way out of that swamp. Along the way, she begins to understand what truly shifts within a person when painful memories take root in the body and how grief can also be directed inward: mourning the version of oneself that might have existed without trauma.

That is the quiet, persistent question at the heart of Sorry, Baby. In which humor plays a central role. Not to trivialize the experience, but as a form of self-protection, a way to survive emotional disarray. The film shows how differently people cope and affirms that taking time is not a weakness.

Without ever explicitly depicting the assault, Eva Victor — both director and lead actress, makes its impact profoundly felt, in a way that lingers long after the film ends. She challenges our perception of time itself. How minutes, hours, and years can slip out of sync in moments of crisis, and how healing is never a linear process.

In Sentimental Values by Joachim Trier, the story centers on the conflicts within families that rarely find their way into conversation. The fear of unspoken thoughts and feelings, both one’s own and those of others, is simply too great. The guilt is too heavy and makes it hard to believe in goodness or in hope. And yet there is a constant: the reminder that time and the willingness to work on what is broken can make a long-standing relationship feel possible again. A house that grows with you, that through renovations invites new perspectives and creates space for new memories.

Shaped by painful losses and wrong decisions, this story becomes an example of how things can shift. Slowly, but noticeably. And even if the structure carries small cracks that can never be repaired, the house can still stand.

Through the making of a new feature film, the people involved begin to understand what truly matters, which demons must be faced, and that the ability to speak to one another can indeed be learned again.

In Cat People (1942), Jacques Tourneur tells the story of Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian artist living in New York. She believes she is bound by an ancient curse, doomed to turn into a panther whenever passion awakens within her. To protect the man she loves, she must suppress what feels most alive within her. Every kiss could awaken the beast and destroy everything she longs to hold onto. Bound by superstition, she lives outside Christian virtue, destined to sin.

The film is less about the childhood trauma caused by fairy tales and more a dark fairy tale in itself. Through quiet gestures and subtle symbols, Tourneur creates an atmosphere of unease in which disbelief surrounds Irena, yet every panther-shaped shadow seems to confirm her reality.

At its core, Cat People is an intimate story about the dread of one’s own desires. It explores the weight of female repression in a patriarchal world, how society demands control over passion, and the collision between modernity and lingering superstition. Irena’s fear embodies the horror of intimacy, the cost of restraint, and the struggle to exist in a world that will neither fully understand nor accept her.