Still from What Can’t Be Mentioned

Currents

What Can’t Be Mentioned

Dan Sallitt

World Premiere

Jackie (Tallie Medel) is a social worker in training picking at the knots of her own unresolved issues in microbudget maestro Dan Sallitt’s sequel to his notorious-yet-gentle 2012 taboo-buster The Unspeakable Act. Preceded by Nathan Silver’s Sounds From Home.

Runtime
61 min
Country
U.S.
Language
English
Year
2026
More information
Official film page

Screenings

Jackie (Tallie Medel) is a social worker in training picking at the knots of her own unresolved issues in microbudget maestro Dan Sallitt’s return to the scene of his notorious-yet-gentle 2012 taboo-buster The Unspeakable Act. This sequel of sorts catches up with Jackie, now in her late twenties in Brooklyn, confronting sexual incompatibility with her bookkeeper boyfriend Anthony (Kyle McCormack) while still maybe nursing latent feelings for her everyguy older brother (Sky Hirschkron), who’s just announced that he’s having a baby with partner Lily (Kit Zauhar). Medel is a neurotic delight as she navigates these murky waters with piquant indelicacy, dancing around that “phase” of her life that remains unspoken—and unspeakable. What Can’t Be Mentioned is an exemplar of Sallitt’s expert comic timing and radical empathy, a minor symphony of emotional projection, transference, and pseudo-flirtation.

Preceded by:
Sounds From Home
Nathan Silver, 2026, France, 7m
North American Premiere

Sounds From Home

Nathan Silver’s parents have been a constant presence in his fractious features; their kibitzing continues in his new short, but from a remove. They narrate their Upstate New York birdwatching adventures in voice memos as he films the more prosaic birdlife in Paris, where he and his wife moved after the 2024 election. In a modern portrait of expatriation, smartphones bridge sound and image, continents, and generations—and carry anxious tidings.