Twenty minutes is barely enough time to cross a few blocks of New York City, and Jackals & Fireflies spends almost all of them following one woman doing exactly that.
What is Jackals & Fireflies about?
A woman moves through the city on buses and trains, ducking into bars and coffee shops, taking in one neighborhood after another while her thoughts drift toward the parts of her life that stay unresolved — her loneliness, a love that was never returned. The short offers no plot in the conventional sense; it is closer to a walk shared with a stranger's interior monologue, letting the city's texture stand in for the shape of a life. Charlie Kaufman directs from a script credited to poet Eva H.D., whose original writing supplies the film's wandering, observational rhythm.
About the cast
Eva H.D. also appears on screen, joined by Z. Jones and Emily Elizabeth Thomas in a small, tightly focused cast built for a story that lives in one woman's perspective.
Context & significance
Jackals & Fireflies comes from the United States and runs a lean 20 minutes, closer in form to a piece of literary nonfiction than a conventional narrative short — fitting for a director known for treating interior life as the real subject of his films rather than plot. The short format suits the material: there is no room for a conventional arc, so the film instead accumulates small, specific observations — a bus seat, a bartender's face, a passing conversation — and trusts that they add up to something without ever spelling out what.
Watching Jackals & Fireflies on Ktime
The short streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Farsi subtitles, making its dialogue-light, thought-heavy style easy to follow for Farsi-speaking viewers. A free K-Time account login is needed to watch; the page can be read without one.