By Love

Ela Božič Peer-to-Peer Film Criticism Workshop on Višegrad Film Forum 2025

Accidental Transcendence

Marina Malysh’s By Love (2024) is a film about change—not the gradual kind, but the kind that happens in an instant, deep within. It follows a terminally ill man, ready to stop treatment, as he informs his father in a near-empty diner and later tells his doctor. These moments feel like the only solid ground in a film that quickly drifts into the abstract. As the protagonist slips into a surreal...