Mariana Ant is one of those shorts that arrives with its own peculiar rhythm — the kind of film that will either sweep you up in its surreal current or leave you blinking on the shoreline. There’s no middle ground, and honestly, that’s part of its charm.
Set in the fictional region of Thorbat, a place shaped by the textures and folklore of Spain’s Aragon, the film follows a beggar mother and her daughter whose worldviews couldn’t be further apart. The mother dreams of wealth without lifting a finger, while young Mariana is gentle, industrious, and so enamoured with ants that she longs to become one. When a mysterious, elegantly dressed woman grants both their wishes, the results are far from the fairy‑tale ending the setup might suggest.
Directors Maite Uzal and Rubén Pascual Tardío lean fully into the fable. The performances are heightened, theatrical, almost operatic — not out of excess, but intention. This isn’t naturalism; it’s a moral tale dressed in surrealism, echoing the satirical traditions of Buñuel, Lorca, and Dalí without ever feeling derivative. The opening “Once upon a time” isn’t a flourish — it’s a contract, inviting the audience to suspend realism and step into something more symbolic, more childlike, more curious.
What the film ultimately circles is a simple, quietly resonant idea: hard work and laziness coexist in the world, but neither guarantees anything. Luck, circumstance, and the contradictions of human behaviour shape outcomes just as much. It’s a message delivered with a wink rather than a lecture.
Visually, the short is striking. Cinematographer Ismael Issa crafts a storybook world that feels timeless — not pinned to geography so much as memory and myth. The imagery supports the film’s allegorical ambitions, giving the 16‑minute runtime a richness that lingers longer than expected.
