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Set against the stark backdrop of an abandoned phone booth, (+33), directed by French filmmaker Sean Nam and produced by Keystone Films, has been awarded Best Foreign Language Short of August 2025 at Indie Short Fest. The short has been recognized for its emotional intensity, intimate storytelling, and atmospheric craft.
The film follows Mila as she returns to the place where her mother died, guided by a mysterious number in search of closure. Instead, her journey uncovers truths that could upend everything she thought she knew, in a story that blends family drama with psychological mystery, drawing its strength from quiet moments, unspoken tensions, and the fragility of memory.
Director’s Vision
A graduate of the Sorbonne’s cinema program, Sean Nam began his career in post-production before moving toward writing and directing short films with his team. Over the past two years, (+33) became the culmination of his most personal and creatively formative period.
For Nam, the project was both an artistic exploration and a deeply personal journey: “This is a hauntingly intimate story about a mother and her daughter, set in an abandoned phone booth. It is very personal to me—about my own mother, but also about the relationships many of us share with our Asian parents. As a young Asian director, it was important to highlight those faces and voices, both in front of and behind the camera, and to ensure they are heard.”
Performances That Ground the Story
The emotional resonance of (+33) is carried by its two leads. Camille Pham portrays Mila with quiet intensity, capturing the vulnerability of a daughter searching for answers in the shadow of loss. Though early in her career, her performance suggests a strong emerging voice.
Opposite her, Jade Phan-Gia lends depth and presence to the role of the mother. Already building a notable résumé in French cinema with recent roles in films such as Nouvelle Vague (2025) and Le Dernier Souffle (2025), as well as earlier work in The Translators (2019) and Little Tickles (2017), Phan-Gia brings experience and gravitas that enrich the film’s emotional impact. Together, the two actresses form the beating heart of Nam’s story.
Themes and Impact
The film’s title—(+33), France’s international dialing code—serves as a metaphor for distance and disconnection, echoing Mila’s search for truth and her attempt to reconnect across absence. With its minimalist setting and carefully restrained visual language, the film achieves an almost theatrical intensity where grief, memory, and suspense collide.
Indie Short Fest Recognition
By awarding (+33) Best Foreign Language Short of August 2025, Indie Short Fest recognizes not only Sean Nam’s distinctive auteur vision but also the film’s ability to transform a personal story into a universal meditation on family, identity, and loss. It reflects the festival’s commitment to amplifying fresh international voices while celebrating the craft of independent cinema.
Other Standout Winners of the August 2025 Edition
Award of Excellence: All the Men’s Hangers
Written and directed by Sabrina Lassegue, this searing drama follows a devout Texas family whose unwavering support for an abortion ban is upended when their youngest daughter is sexually assaulted. As the family confronts the gap between ideology and lived experience, the film reframes a polarizing debate through an intimate, character-driven lens.
Lassegue’s direction favors proximity over polemic—careful pacing, close-quarters staging, and a finely tuned ensemble keep the focus on survivors’ experiences rather than slogans. The result is a work that resists easy answers, lingers in the aftermath, and invites audiences to sit with difficult questions—an approach that aligns with Indie Short Fest’s recognition of bold, socially engaged storytelling.
A multifaceted artist and advocate, Lassegue is the founder and CEO of Extinguished Youth Productions/Inc, creating films, digital content, and events that amplify women-led stories, social justice issues, and survivor narratives. Trained at AMDA, with further studies at Juilliard and Harvard Business School, she describes the film as her “love letter to girlhood”—a piece made not to feel safe, but to spark conversation, unsettle, and ensure that women and survivors feel seen and heard.
Award of Excellence: Land of Forgotten Echoes
Directed by Layne Marie Williams, this taut desert fable follows sisters Orpha and Rosalee, who have never known the outside world until an intruder breaks their isolation. What begins as a cloistered coming-of-age turns toward survival and self-determination, unfolding with the spare tension of a modern western.
Made in the heat of summer on the edge of the Mojave—Randsburg, CA, at the storied Rusty’s Chicken Ranch—the production embraced the landscape as a character in itself. Williams and lead actor/writer/EP Ariana Kaufman sought a location that held history and mystery; the small crew lived on the property, and the film channels the place’s “haunted” aura into its atmosphere and mood.
Los Angeles–based and originally from Montgomery, Alabama (with formative years on a Nashville horse farm), Williams is a Telly Award–winning director whose feature The Christmas Pitch premiered at the Cannes Film Market and later reached The CW, Tubi, Amazon Prime Video, Redbox, Apple TV, Vudu, and The Roku Channel. She directed the pilot and season one of Zen Room (starring and co-written by Cheri Oteri) and helmed projects including Wizdom (Indie Short Fest Award of Excellence — Special Jury Mention, May 2025), I Didn’t Mean to Go Mental, Veiled Tractate, Blanche, Scutly, and Golden Voices. In her words, Land of Forgotten Echoes is about “strong women inside a mysterious story,” bringing feminine perspectives to genres—western and noir—where they’re too rarely centered.
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