A teenage girl becomes obsessed with AI face-tuning, leading her to taking things too far with her self-image in pursuit of online perfection.

In Face Tweak, director Bianca Poletti (Ultra Low, Radically Honest) delivers a chillingly relevant cautionary tale about beauty, identity, and the digital illusions we chase. The short film follows a teenage girl who becomes consumed by AI face-tuning filters, spiraling into an obsession that pushes her to reshape her real self to match a virtual ideal. With a distinctly Black Mirror tone, the film examines the quiet horror of what happens when the pursuit of online perfection overrides reality—posing a haunting question: when is enough truly enough?

Shot on the same day as the trailer for her SXSW-premiering film Video Barn, Face Tweak was sparked by Poletti’s research into TikTok trends showing teens undergoing surgery to replicate AI-enhanced versions of themselves. In just a few hours, she turned this unsettling phenomenon into a visually arresting, emotionally sharp short that taps into the anxieties of a generation growing up in the age of digital distortion. The result is a compact, powerful film that mirrors our most fragile insecurities—and how easily technology can twist them.

Face Tweak explores the unsettling obsession with AI beauty filters and self-image—what moment or idea initially sparked the story?

I was researching beauty tutorials on TikTok for a commercial job, and I kept seeing the same thing over and over—especially with teen girls, 16 and under. They were using filters and then showing a before-and-after: their face with the filter on, followed by the plastic surgery they had to match that filtered look. I found it really fascinating and wanted to dig deeper into that world. I also wanted to explore the AI side of it—how AI has impacted beauty standards for women and men of all ages.

You wrote and shot this in just a few days while already working on another project (Video Barn). How did that spontaneous process shape the film’s energy and aesthetic?

It was really fun! I love creating. At the time, I was prepping to shoot the trailer for my new short, Video Barn. We only needed a half day to shoot that, but the location was so beautiful—and we had three hours left that would have gone unused—so I wrote Face Tweak a couple of days before the shoot. There was an actor I had originally met with for Video Barn, Bix, who I thought was really interesting, so I reached out to her to see if she’d be into collaborating on Face Tweak. I was also lucky to work with Parliament VFX again (they also worked on VB), and they loved the concept and agreed to help. It all just kind of came together. It’s such an incredible feeling when everyone’s genuinely excited about creating—when there are no rules and no one saying, No, you can’t explore that shot. It was all very liberating and fun.

The film leans into a Black Mirror-like tone. How did you approach creating suspense and discomfort while keeping it grounded in today’s social media reality?

Thank you—Black Mirror was definitely a tonal reference for this. I wanted to make sure it didn’t fall into PSA territory; I never want to tell anyone how to feel. I also don’t believe in a world where there’s always a clear right or wrong—there are so many grey areas in life, and that complexity really intrigues me. So with Face Tweak, it was important to explore AI, the idea of taking things too far, and the question: how do you even know when you’ve crossed that line? Is there truly a limit?

FaceTweak poses a haunting question: when is it enough? What kind of reaction or reflection do you hope the film provokes in viewers, especially younger audiences?

I hope younger people—and really, men and women of all ages—see this and take a moment to live in their bodies a little longer before giving up on them completely. I hope they’re able to love themselves fully, with or without getting any work done. It’s something I’m constantly working on myself. Self love.

The visual effects and face-tuning moments are subtle but eerie. What was your approach to achieving those tweaks technically and narratively?

A huge thank you to Eric Mason at Parliament VFX and the entire VFX team—they really helped bring this to life. I wanted to see her features change just slightly at first—enough for the audience to think, wow, she already looks so beautiful, and these subtle updates just enhance her natural beauty. Then I wanted it to escalate quickly to the extreme, to visually capture how easy it is to become addicted to tweaking our appearance—and how it never really feels like enough. I had a lot of conversations about this with Parliament, and they did such an incredible job realizing that vision.

This isn’t your first short featured on Film Shortage—how does FaceTweak represent a shift or continuation in your creative voice?

I’m in a reflective, darker narrative space right now. I’m really interested in technology and how it’s affecting us, so that’s what I’m currently exploring. I hope to keep evolving the narratives and themes I dive into, while always grounding them in a female point of view—I think that’s important.

If you had more time or a larger format, is there anything you’d want to expand on from this story?

I think this works perfectly as a very short story. I’ve thought a lot about creating a longer short film about anorexia, since it’s something I’ve experienced, and body image is an ongoing struggle for many women. But I have other films I’m currently working on, so for now, I’m really happy with this brief exploration and excited to move on to other stories.