The New Yorker's "Two People Exchanging Saliva" Wins a 2026 Oscar

"By evoking the taboo, the bizarre, the playful, and the absurd, art allows us to imagine an inverted social order. Once we see that inversion, we're forced to ask ourselves a simple question: Why do we accept our own world as natural, when it is often no less strange than any satire?"

"Two People Exchanging Saliva follows two women who meet at a glamorous Parisian department store. In the tense world they inhabit, kissing is illegal, and purchases are paid for with slaps to the face—a scenario that drew inspiration from Western materialism and instances of authoritarian repression across the globe, including the violence that sparked the 'Woman Life Freedom' movement in Iran, in 2022."

The New Yorker's 'Two People Exchanging Saliva,' written and directed by Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata, won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in a tie with 'The Singers.' The film follows two women meeting at a Parisian department store in a world where kissing is illegal and purchases are paid with face slaps. This scenario satirizes Western materialism and authoritarian repression, drawing inspiration from global instances of violence including Iran's 'Woman Life Freedom' movement. The directors emphasize the film explores quiet tenderness in repressive societies. Executive-produced by Julianne Moore and Isabelle Huppert, the film uses taboo and absurdity to question why society accepts its own strange norms. A second New Yorker film, 'Retirement Plan,' received a nomination for Best Animated Short.

Read at The New Yorker