Competing for the César (February 26) and Oscars (March 15), Two People Exchanging Saliva, directed by Natalie Musteata and Alexandra Sigh, has already made a mark at numerous international festivals, collecting nearly twenty awards. These include the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Fest, the Audience Award at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival, and the Golden Gate Award in San Francisco.

These accolades honor a film rich in cultural references, where every visual element helps construct a striking dystopia. Another badge of prestige: actresses Isabelle Huppert and Julianne Moore are involved in the project as executive producers.

This short film is a key part of the vibrant contemporary LGBT cinema movement, exploring the tensions between desire, social norms, and political power.

An Authoritarian Society Where Desire Is Criminal

In this austere world, exchanging saliva is a capital crime. Two women, Malaise and Angine — portrayed by Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Luàna Bajrami — encounter each other, observe, and struggle to contain their attraction.

Their meeting in the heart of Galeries Lafayette, where one works as a saleswoman, and the other shops, disrupts their routine. In this peculiar world, slaps serve as currency, and every transaction resembles a quasi-BDSM ritual where each hides her turmoil.

Shot in black and white, the film immediately sets its intention: to show how desire survives within an economic and moral system that monitors intimacy. The slightest hint of transgression — buying toothpaste, brushing against skin, holding a gaze — instantly triggers suspicion and repression, with nosy neighbors, wary colleagues, and public arrests.

This approach echoes the discussions in our article on the representation of LGBT people in cinema and media, where imagery becomes a political tool in itself.

Dramatic Tension Enriched by Literary References

The tension escalates as the fragile Angine, an apparently faultless bourgeois, frantically zigzags through the aisles to find the saleswoman who obsesses her. To escape Malaise’s overly curious colleague, she pretends to make a phone call.

You can sense she begins with “Hello Sorrow,” a nod to Françoise Sagan’s novel Bonjour tristesse, controversial at its release in 1954 for its depiction of out-of-wedlock relationships. Like the book, the film questions the boundary between morality and freedom, between social conformity and intimate impulse.

A Chilling Setting Serving the Narrative

The directors don’t just stage a thwarted desire; they craft an environment that physically translates oppression. From the oppressive department stores to Angine’s minimalist and cold apartment, each place suggests a lack of intimacy and constant body monitoring.

This stripped-back aesthetic enhances the feeling of a society where tenderness is suspect and love becomes an act of defiance.

Unrelenting Suspense Until the Climax

For 35 minutes, the audience remains hanging on one question: will the two women dare to cross the line at the risk of their lives?

This constant threat is a reminder that, in reality, homosexuality is still punishable by death in several countries. Thus, the short film transforms an impossible romance into a political and sensory reflection on surveillance, norms, and the resilience of desire.

Available on Canal+, Two People Exchanging Saliva confirms that contemporary queer cinema continues to surprise, unsettle, and move audiences — turning a simple act of intimacy into a revolutionary gesture.