After her cell phone is stolen, Laura, a pregnant dentist, commits a desperate act: she attacks a stranger, convinced he’s the thief. But what seemed like a passing impulse opens a rift in her perception of reality. The cell phone reappears. The messages don’t stop. The images show impossible things.

Review by Parker Jesse Chase:

Delusion opens with the sound of a lighter flicking open and closed. No context is given, but anxiety builds. This directorial choice sets the tone before any visual or narrative is shared. When we finally see Mauricio, lit by a harsh red glow, it frames him in ambiguity. Is he a threat, or just a man caught in the wrong moment? The film never gives us a clean answer, and this uncertainty fuels everything that follows.

As the film continues to follow Laura, a pregnant woman whose phone is stolen on a dark roadside. What should be a moment of inconvenience turns into something far more dangerous. She locks onto a stranger, Mauricio, and decides he is the one who took it. That decision becomes the film’s core fracture point. From there, reality begins to slip.

Lighting plays a major role in the psychological shifts at play. The early warm tones of the gas station give way to sickly greens, reds, and yellows by the time we reach outside the bar. The world starts to feel contaminated, like reality itself is turning against Laura. It’s not just a visual queue, it mirrors her internal state.

This is a story about perception under pressure. About how fear, isolation, and vulnerability can lead to abrupt decision making. Laura’s pregnancy adds weight to every choice she makes. Her body is not just her own, and that amplifies the urgency, the protectiveness, the paranoia. When she says, “I’m not going to let them take anything else,” it lands as both maternal instinct and a
warning sign. Protection turns into projection.

Sound design carries much of the emotional weight. The escalating notifications, the persistent ringing, the layering of a heartbeat tied to her pregnancy, all build a sense of pressure that never releases.

Delusion is defined by its refusal to bend, even when confronted with its very truth. Laura embodies this. There is no real evidence that leads to Mauricio taking her phone in the first place, yet she builds a case in her mind and acts on it. The stabbing is not just violence, this is conviction made physical. Once Laura crosses this line, the film refuses to let her step back. The phone returns to her hand. Messages flood in. Images appear that should not exist. It becomes less of an object and more of a force. Something invasive. Something that cannot be discarded.

The phone reads like a stand-in for our relationship with constant connection. It doesn’t just demand attention, it traps it. Laura tries to throw it away, destroy it, escape it, but it always returns to her hand. That loop mirrors the way we engage with our own devices. The need to check, respond, stay plugged in. Even when it harms us.

Then the film sharpens its edge. Laura receives a video of herself committing the crime. She is being watched. Not just observed, but consumed. A message comes through: she is being live-streamed. People are watching her unravel in real time.

That’s where the film lands its most unsettling idea. Suffering turned into entertainment. We scroll through pain every day. We watch breakdowns, violence, and public shame. There is a distance that makes it easy. Delusion collapses this distance. It puts Laura inside that loop, turning her fear into content. The audience within the film becomes a reflection of us outside it. The performances ground the film. Laura’s unraveling feels physical. Her hands shaking, her breath tightening, the way panic lives in her body. Mauricio, in contrast, is quiet and human, which makes the violence against him hit harder. He feels like someone who could have walked away from the story entirely, if not for her belief.

The final image, a wide pullback revealing her bloodied and alone, lands with a kind of cold distance. It echoes the earlier surveillance shots. We are no longer close to her. We are watching, just like everyone else.

In a nocturnal Cuba, lit only by the tiny lights of the cocuyos, the island’s DJs and electronic music producers become a living metaphor: like those glowing insects, they come alive at night, illuminating the city with their energy and restlessness.

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Directed by Desiderio Sanzi

Review by Julie C. Sheppard:

This film, Cuba Coocyuo Remix, is a solid tribute to the electronic music coming from nighttime venues of this colourful, historic island. The film captures the rhythm of the language, and the sites and sounds of the place – – the cinematographer does a fabulous job including scenes of people of all ages and walks of life going about their days. 

Despite the obvious challenges of living in Cuba with its old cars and rather crumbling infrastructure, the DJs are not at all deterred when making plans to create lively, upbeat musical entertainment. The refrains of music we do hear give us a strong clue to what the high energy events of the night will bring. It is also inspirational to hear the thoughts, plans and dreams of a local DJ, and a confident voice discussing the available equipment and software.

The comfortable interactions between city folk give the pace of the film a gentleness, as time almost seems to stand still as we wait for the evening to come and the music and dancing to begin. Film viewers no doubt wish they could join in this electrifying dance.