Yair Beltrán’s Debut Is a Ghost Story Without Ghosts.

Yair Beltrán’s debut short 'Walk With Me' exists somewhere between memory, dream and quiet psychological unease. Its premise is deceptively slight, a woman clings to what has already been while time, indifferent to her resistance, continues marching forward. Yet Beltrán approaches that idea less as a conventional narrative and more as a fractured emotional experience. The result is an experimental little ghost of a film, vague, eerie and deliberately difficult to pin down with messages about abuse and moving on.

We are given fragments rather than coordinates, encouraged to feel our way through the protagonist’s emotional landscape instead of being handed a map. That ambiguity works particularly well alongside some of the film’s more curious editing decisions. Static pauses interrupt the flow like corrupted memories.

There is also something appealingly unvarnished about the location. Rather than disguising its limitations,it allows rough surfaces and imperfect spaces to become part of its atmosphere. The surroundings feel lonely, neglected and strangely detached from ordinary life.

For a debut, there is a promising instinct here for mood. Beltrán understands that unease does not necessarily require spectacle. Sometimes an empty space held for a few seconds too long can do considerably more damage.

The DIY nature of the production does, however, reveal its limits. The cinematography often feels more functional than authored, and stronger compositions could have translated the film’s psychological ideas into a more distinctive visual language. The sound design is similarly aggressive in its grunginess.

Yet polishing it too much might also rob it of something. There is a nervous, handmade quality to the film that suits its emotional instability. It feels like a memory recovered from an old device, damaged around the edges, incomplete, but somehow more unsettling because of it.

Beltrán’s first film is therefore less a finished statement than an intriguing introduction. The production may be modest, but the instinct behind it is clear, experiment first, explain later. And for a filmmaker taking his first steps, there are far less interesting places to begin.