Fractal

Directed by Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg and written by Keaton Morris-Stan, Fractal is a short film that explores grief through a nonlinear lens. It follows a woman caught between memory, present reality, and imagined futures as she processes an unexpected loss.

Grace (Keaton Morris-Stan) is a hospital worker who collapses unexpectedly and wakes up in a hospital bed. The film follows her journey through grief, memory, and imagined futures after she suffers a miscarriage. Her dreamlike state blurs time and space, weaving between a recollection of her first date with Brandon (Austin Michael Young), the revelation of her pregnancy, and her visions of a daughter she’ll never know.

In a symbolic moment from Fractals, Grace (Keaton Morris-Stan) lies on a wide-open lawn, holding sunflowers, lost in an imagined future.

“…her visions of a daughter she’ll never know.”

Fractal, directed by Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg and written by Keaton Morris-Stan, is a highly reflective short film that explores Grace’s emotional reckoning across three realities—past, present, and hypothetical. It asks the tricky question of how exactly one mourns something…someone who never existed.

What makes Fractal so effective is its ability to jump from timeline to timeline, keeping the audience constantly off-balance. In a way, it mirrors the emotional unresolvedness of Grace’s miscarriage. Keaton Morris-Stan delivers a heart-wrenching performance that lingers long after the film ends. Life deals us cruel hands, and healing is never straightforward.

Fractal captures the disorienting emotional aftermath of trauma with a structure that mirrors the chaos of unresolved pain. Its quiet intensity lies in the spaces between what was, what is, and what might have been.