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Review: Voice Over, a short film by Martín Rosete

imitationlife.com, 19/02/2026

It is hard to predict at the beginning of Voice Over that the narrative of this formally exciting 10-minute film will take us from an unknown planet where an astronaut has crash landed his ship to a peacefully idyllic scene of first love with a French Eurovision Song Contest entry as background music, with intermediate stops in a WWI battle field and an undefined subaquatic landscape. Or maybe not, since the man at the helm of this project is the filmmaker that, for his award-winning 2002 film debut Revolución, chose to adapt a text by Sławomir Mrożek, the Polish author famous for the use of distortion, historical references and non-realistic elements in his work.

The same level of craft that director Martín Rosete showed in his first incursion into filmmaking is applied here to far more ambitious material that could probably stand to extend its aspirations past 10 minutes, but that works perfectly well in its format regardless. The narrative of the film, scripted by Rec co-writer Luiso Berdejo, pivots on the time, or the lack thereof, left to a character who finds himself in an extreme situation in three different times and places. It is indicative of the film’s slyly fragmented construction that its title refers only to the voice, that of veteran French actor Féodor Atkine, guiding us through the proceedings, but not to any of the actual events of the film, thus giving the viewer no clue as to which storyline to cling to in search of the story’s own truth.

Rosete nibbles away at the film’s core enigma (or enigmas) from different ends of his timescale. He artfully manipulates suspense by crossing time and space planes with swift, simple cuts that don’t always immediately assert their place on the film’s inner realm of fantasy or reality, not least because of Atkine’s misleading account of events as the main character’s voice of conscience. The gasping crescendo in the film’s narrative abruptly comes to a halt with the unexpectedly soothing denouement, an anticlimax of sorts that mysteriously works well as narrative closure, with Alain Barrière’s Elle était si jolie providing for a surprisingly apt musical finale.

Shot through with an unusual combination of verve and care by Rosete, Voice Over is a weighty artistic accomplishment. Cinematographer Jose Martín, the helmer’s younger brother, lends a distinctly monochromatic tone to each of the storylines, taking full cinematic advantage of the icily desolate landscape of the locations in Tenerife, where a good part of the film was shot. The under water scenes are a beautiful standout of a short film that boasts more surface polish than many longer efforts.

Voice Over has reaped awards in several film festivals, including the prestigious Gijón Film Festival in Spain, an excellent precursor for a film that has an exciting phase in the festival circuit ahead of it. The film has been released in LA in January, thus rendering it formally eligible for next year’s Academy Awards in the category of Best Live Action Short Film. Voice Over is certainly one of those narratively distinct, technically accomplished films that fare well among AMPAS voters, which is encouraging since an Oscar nomination, even in that comparatively humble category, could elevate to stratospheric heights the career of this most promising young filmmaker.

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