HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! Writer-director Kristen Gerweck Diaz explicitly goes after anyone who views women as nothing more than people meant to give birth in her short Milk Baby. Kei (Mia Ando) is walking in the park pushing her baby in a stroller. She hears a young boy call out for help and goes to investigate. Next thing she knows, her baby is gone.
All of a sudden, Kei wakes up in a car being greeted by Mary (Maribeth Monroe). Kei explains that she is having second thoughts, so the attendant tells her to sleep on the decision. She then wakes up in a room with two doors: one leads to a closet, and the other is locked. This worries Kei as she doesn’t recall most of the previous night. Even more worrisome is that she keeps seeing and hearing strange messages warning her. But what are these warnings about, and will Kei solve it before it is too late?
“Kei explains that she is having second thoughts, so the attendant tells her to sleep on the decision.”
Milk Baby ends on quite a hilarious and shocking punchline. Until then, the film is mysterious and weird, with answers not readily forthcoming. Heck, there’s room for interpretation, so my version of the events might not align with that of a different audience member. But therein lies the majesty of Diaz’s work. The message is clear, but it is wrapped up in a strange, almost hallucinatory story that is equal parts involving and creepy.
Said message — about how women should be free to choose what they do with their bodies — is a political minefield. But anyone who disagrees with that very obviously correct sentiment can kindly go f**k themselves to death. No one gets to dictate anyone’s action having to do with their body, and if it takes a mysterious, slightly funny, often eerie plot to get that across to a random yokel somewhere, then so be it.
Milk Baby is a thought-provoking and engaging short film. Diaz has something to say and conveys it in a wonderfully interesting and original way. Will it piss some people off? Absolutely, but such people don’t matter anyway, so why listen to me?
Milk Baby screened at the 2025 HollyShorts Film Festival.
"…mysterious, slightly funny, often eerie..."
