FLIPPER

10’34’’

2026

SYNOPSIS
On a quiet London street dividing Lambeth and Southwark, an upside-down car remains untouched for weeks.

Directed by Can Köroğlu & Teva Cheema
Sound Recordist Ali Kıvanç Güldürür
Sound Mix / Design Pulsar Studios
Dinis Henriques & Tiago Cardoso

DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT
We were cycling home to south London one evening after location scouting for another project when we almost passed by this upside-down car. It was parked impeccably in this quiet, serene neighborhood. A Japanese cherry blossom tree a few meters away was dropping leaves onto the car and letting them fall gracefully onto the street. Mesmerized by the juxtaposition of this destroyed vehicle in such a quaint setting, we parked our bikes on the sidewalk and watched. Pedestrians and cars passed the wreck, commuting home-- this eye-strain in the street that was, somehow, invisible.

We called our sound recordist that night and got back to the crash site the next afternoon to capture this surreal window in time, assuming the vehicle would soon be removed. When we came back the following day, there was spray-painted graffiti on the car, and the headlight bulbs had gone missing. It felt like this temporary fixture of the neighborhood was already decaying on the road.

We recorded the car for a few hours and knocked on neighbors’ doors to gather accounts of the night of the incident-- really an attempt to understand how this car had come to rest so perfectly, upside-down. The more we spoke with the neighbors, the more we learned about them, their relationships with one another, and less about the car-crasher. Flipper became a way to stay with this strange object long enough for the street around it to reveal itself.

FESTIVALS
2026 London Short Film Festival, in Competition