Rob Munday
Imagine living in a world where dancing could land you in prison. For a young Iranian couple in 2023, this was not a dystopian fantasy but a harsh reality: after posting a video of themselves dancing in front of Tehran’s Freedom Tower, they were sentenced to a combined ten years behind bars. Their story is just one of the real-life events that inspired Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh’s striking short film Two People Exchanging Saliva – a surreal vision of a society where kissing is a capital crime and everyday transactions are conducted through slaps to the face. The result is a world that is as hauntingly beautiful as it is deeply unsettling, inviting viewers to step into a dystopia that feels both alien and disturbingly close to modern realities.
“Our film takes place in a society where violence is normalised and intimacy is absent”
Despite its bleak sounding premise – and a notably macabre opening in which a box containing a still-living person is thrown into a pit – it would be reductive to characterise Two People Exchanging Saliva as merely another dystopian nightmare. Focused on a young saleswoman working at an exclusive department store who becomes entangled in the life of a dissatisfied woman driven by a compulsive need to shop, the film ultimately reveals itself as a story of hope amid despair. It is a narrative about longing for something more, even when the world insists that such desires are forbidden.
“Our film takes place in a society where violence is normalised and intimacy is absent,” Musteata and Singh explain, reflecting on how, although the rules of their on-screen universe may initially seem surreal, their inspiration is drawn from real-world dynamics. “It was in this confluence of the ridiculous and the horrific that we wanted to explore how society’s conventions distort human relationships,” the pair add. Musteata, in particular, could relate to a world governed by strict rules, as her family had fled Communist Romania and “experienced first-hand the absurdisms of a surveillance society.”
Luàna Bajrami (L) & Zar Amir Ebrahimi star as Malaise and Angine in Two People Exchanging Saliva
However, it was another real-world event that played a pivotal role in the creation of Two People Exchanging Saliva – the COVID-19 pandemic. While this period was undeniably challenging for filmmakers (and everyone else), the restrictions unexpectedly created a unique opportunity for Musteata and Singh. “Misia Films developed a partnership with Guillaume Houzé and the Galeries Lafayette department store, inviting visual artists to film inside the stores while they were closed to the public,” the duo reveal, adding that “it was a truly amazing opportunity to tell a story in an environment we would never ordinarily have access to.”
With this opportunity in place, it took just one Zoom call for the story to crystallise. “These stores are so loaded with layers of meaning related to power, wealth, and beauty,” Musteata and Singh explain. “We realized that the simplest way to take narrative ownership of the store was to change its rules. Suddenly, the concept of shopping as a painful ritual, an act of suffering, just popped into our heads: what if the clientele paid for goods by being slapped in the face?”
The result is a visually striking film built around a narrative that is both unique and relatable – a combination guaranteed to turn heads. Musteata and Singh hope the film will continue to capture attention during awards season, after it became Oscar-qualified following its win of the Grand Jury Prize for Live-Action Short Film at the 2024 AFI Fest, as well as Best Drama Short at the 2025 Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ Film Festival