“Shotaro’s Dessert🍨”
Oh Minji: Shotaro, desserts, a child, and a puppy “Shotaro’s Dessert” is a gathering of tender and innocent words on a summer day. In an age of stimulation and speed, this show moves in the opposite direction. Each episode holds just one dessert and a day’s worth of ordinary life. There are no flashy cuts, no captions, —only the soft sounds of cooking and the gentle, unhurried conversation between Shotaro and his younger sister, Gowoon. Instead of loud music or sound effects, there’s the hum of daily life, the laughter of a child. In a world where a single button solves everything, the show lingers on the time and care required for baking. In an era of multitasking, it sticks to one recipe at a time. For twenty short minutes, “Shotaro’s Dessert” offers the opposite of what we’ve grown used to. To make a dessert for his sister, Shotaro peels fruit, fills the blender, soaks gelatin in ice water, stirs each ingredient into a pot, bakes, and layers. Slowly, neatly, the dessert takes shape. When it’s ready, they share it together—then end the day writing each other’s names with sparklers or choosing hairpins that suit one another.

In a summer day, Shotaro and Gowoon make and share dessert. A peach-melon parfait eaten between laughter in the safety of home. A white tomato shaved ice that cools the sleepless heat of a summer night. A matcha cake and Apple Mille-feuille that soothes the body after a long journey back home. “Shotaro’s Dessert” carries the sweet, chilled flavor of an idealized summer—one soft spoonful at a time.

“It Was Just an Accident”
Bae Dongmi(CINE21 Reporter): Trauma resurfaces through sound, scent, and touch. Late one night, Vahid, a car mechanic, hears the uneven steps of a man with a prosthetic leg and instantly recognizes the sound. To him, it belongs to “Eghbal the Peg Leg,” the intelligence officer who once tortured him in prison. Years earlier, Vahid had joined a labor movement and was accused of propaganda, agitation, and conspiracy against the state. Behind bars, he endured unspeakable humiliation and lost the woman he loved. With his life shattered, the mere rhythm of a creaking footstep rekindles a consuming thirst for revenge. Convinced he has found his tormentor, Vahid resolves to abduct the man and bury him where no one will ever find him. But is the man truly Eghbal? His captive insists he is Rashid—a recent accident cost him his leg, and Vahid is mistaken. Torn between rage and doubt, Vahid seeks out other survivors, asking them to confirm the man’s identity. Photographer Shiva claims he can sense Eghbal’s presence in the smell of his sweat. Another victim, Hamid, feels the prosthesis, then the scar on the intact leg, and declares with conviction that this is the man who must die. But none of them ever saw Eghbal’s face; they were all blindfolded during torture. As hesitation deepens, a question begins to form: can violence ever be redeemed by violence?

“It Was Just an Accident,” the latest film by Jafar Panahi, a luminary in the world of cinema, continues his incisive inquiry into the moral and political fractures of Iranian society. Like his characters, Panahi himself has lived a life of confinement within his own country. Arrested in 2010 for supporting anti-government protests and accused of making propaganda against the regime, he was sentenced to six years in prison. Though international voices—from Steven Spielberg to Barack Obama—petitioned for his release and he was conditionally freed, the state imposed a twenty-year ban on filmmaking, scriptwriting, interviews, and travel abroad. Still, Panahi never stopped. “It Was Just an Accident” was filmed clandestinely, without official sanction, and unveiled at the 78th Cannes Film Festival this year, where it won the Palme d’Or. The Iranian government may seek to silence his vision, yet paradoxically, the world now sees Iran more vividly through him. Panahi remains a filmmaker devoted to the present tense of his nation, and we, in turn, see that living landscape through his lens. When trauma rises unbidden and the body trembles, when one chooses to continue living humanly amid ruin, and when, in that resolve, a faint, unguarded laugh escapes—those fleeting moments of unvarnished humor, woven effortlessly by Panahi’s hand, bring the air of Iran uncannily close.

“Unknown Number: The High School Catfish” (Netflix)
*This article contains spoilers for the documentary film “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish.”
Baek Seolhui (Writer, Columnist): “All of the text messages in this film are real.” In Beal City, Michigan, a high-school couple, Owen and Lauryn, began receiving 40 to 50 texts a day starting in October 2020—messages laced with profanity, gaslighting, and sexual harassment. The small town was swiftly engulfed in a fog of suspicion, and when the FBI stepped in, the culprit’s identity proved shocking. The Netflix documentary “Unknown Number: The High School Catfish” traces the case from start to finish, uncovering the perpetrator’s hidden backstory and showing where the victims are now.

After drawing attention with “Abducted in Plain Sight,” director Skye Borgman has continued to explore warped family dynamics and grooming within closed environments. In this case, Lauryn’s mother, Kendra, is revealed as the perpetrator; the control and grooming she exerted over her daughter finally surfaces.

Borgman’s signature choice to place the people involved directly before the camera lets the perpetrator’s excuses stand “as is.” The sight of an ordinary face rationalizing abuse is chilling—yet precisely for that reason, the victims’ quiet courage to testify stands out even more vividly.

Some viewers find Lauryn exasperating; others criticize the film for granting the perpetrator a narrative. But Lauryn spent 13 years under Kendra’s roof, and during that time, Kendra managed the entire family through lies. Consider the final sequence: over Kendra’s face as she says, “I definitely think that we can have a healthy relationship. I know that we both hold that bond we have close,” the film overlays the malicious texts she sent to Lauryn. Sometimes, as we watch stories unfold, it’s worth asking whom the camera is truly looking at—and what the person behind it most wants us to see.