Slash FF Review: What We Leave Behind (2025)

Slash Film festival
Fantastic Shorts Competition

Is it hard to talk about one’s trauma when your memory is shattered and your vocal cords have been ripped from your neck? The protagonist of “What we leave behind?” knows something about it, yet he cannot tell you. Instead, directors Jean-Sébastien Hamel and Alexandra Myotte – whose animated short premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, followed by screenings in Toronto, and has just had its Austrian premiere at the Slash Film Festival in Vienna – will use their uneven lines and gloomy palette to convey this.

The zombie-like man sits on the couch, trying to remember where the hole in his neck came from. His memory transports him back to the hockey stadium where he used to practice as a child. A janitor leads him to the locker room, pausing by a photograph of him with his couch, hanging on the corridor wall. The picture does not speak, but the faceless teammates in the frame suggest more than enough of what might have happened in the past. Locked in the locker, the man begins to relive the past he has so desperately tried to forget.

Hamel and Myotte do not shy from portraying the traumatic acts, demonstrating impressive craftsmanship. Dialogue is limited – not only because the protagonist has lost his vocal cords, but also as a metaphor for the impossibility of voicing unspeakable trauma. Minute by minute, the past slowly unwinds in front of the audience, revealing secrets that are no longer his alone to keep.

The final scene is mesmerizing yet unbearably difficult to watch and listen, forcing the viewer to confront what has been lurking in the shadows since the beginning. Layer by layer, the mystery unfolds in psychedelic gloom and uncomfortable silence. But no commentary follows, for by now it is far too late anyway. And with the scarf carefully wrapped around the torn neck, the directors seem to find the answer to the question posed at the very beginning: it is not hard to talk, but it is better to stay silent.

Original title: Ce qu’on laisse derrière
Runtime: 11’
Country: Canada
Language: French
Year: 2025
Written| Directed|Produced by: Jean-Sébastien Hamel, Alexandra Myotte
Editing: Jean-Sébastien Hamel
Production Design: Alexandra Myotte
Voiced by: Jack Hackel, Jean-Sébastien Hamel