Milk Baby Review – Dystopian Motherhood in a Visually Haunting Short

Kristen Gerweck Diaz’s Milk Baby delivers a breathtaking, anxiety-laced vision of motherhood gone wrong.

Milk Baby Review – Dystopian Motherhood at Its Most Haunting

The best short films don’t just tell a story—they spark conversation, inspire, and leave you thinking about the world long after the credits roll. Kristen Gerweck Diaz, a law school graduate turned filmmaker, has delivered exactly that with Milk Baby, a 14-minute relentless blend of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi that feels as beautiful as it is unsettling.

The short follows Kei (the magnetic and deeply expressive Mia Ando), a mother whose journey begins in a dreamlike haze of love and devotion for her newborn son. Yet, as we’re pulled deeper into her reality, the idyllic façade fractures. Kei’s life within a maternity home slowly morphs into a nightmare—her once-innocent sanctuary becoming a prison of unspoken rules and chilling obligations. It’s dystopia dressed in pastel light, where what’s promised as salvation may just be the beginning of her undoing.

Cinematographer Jon Keng captures the world with painterly precision, every frame layered with texture and unease, while Jon Ong’s score swells and recedes like a living organism—lulling you into safety before rattling you with dread. Aacharee Ungsriwong’s editing is deliberate and hypnotic, letting the tension simmer just long enough to make each cut hit with impact.

Poster for Milk Baby, a dystopian fantasy horror short by Kristen Gerweck Diaz, starring Mia Ando as a mother trapped in a haunting maternity home.

Tonally, Milk Baby nestles somewhere between The Handmaid’s Tale and the fever-dream anxiety of early sci-fi dystopias. The production design, costuming, and color palette all point toward a world that is both achingly beautiful and quietly suffocating. And while it runs just over 14 minutes, the pacing allows for a slow, intoxicating unravel that rewards patient viewers with a hauntingly perfect ending.

If there’s one critique, it’s that shaving a few minutes could make it even tighter for festival programming—but even so, Milk Baby is easily one of the most polished, emotionally resonant shorts of 2025. Alongside 77, it stands as one of the year’s best.

It’s not just a short—it’s a proof of concept begging for expansion. And if this cast and crew returned for a feature-length version, the result could be something truly remarkable.

HMU Score: ★★★★★ (5/5) – Breathtakingly crafted, emotionally crushing, and visually hypnotic. Don’t miss it.

Writer/Director: Kristen Gerweck Diaz

Producer: Lou Wang-Holborn

Featuring: Mia Ando, Maribeth Monroe