Some heartbreaks send people to a bar. Some send them to a friend's couch with a bottle of something cheap. Aravind's heartbreak sends him into a forest — the kind that doesn't show up clearly on any map, and the kind he should probably have stayed out of.
That's where Aura, ShortFlix's newest mystery-thriller original, begins. And it does not stay simple for long.
Streaming now in both Tamil and Malayalam, Aura runs a tight 40 minutes — long enough to build real dread, short enough to finish in one sitting without checking the clock once.
A Walk That Was Supposed to Help
Aravind is devastated. Something has ended — badly enough that he needs to get away from everything that reminds him of it. So he does what felt, for one bad decision's worth of a moment, like a good idea: he takes a friend and walks into the woods to clear his head.
The forest has other plans.
Partway through the walk, in a moment the film refuses to over-explain, Aravind's friend simply isn't there anymore. Not lost. Not lagging behind. Gone — pulled through something the film frames only as a strange, unnatural portal, there and then not there, like a door that opened in the air and shut behind him.
Aravind is alone in a forest that no longer feels like a forest. And every step forward from here pulls him deeper into a chain of events that don't add up — not yet, and maybe not for a while.
Built to Unsettle, Not to Shock
What makes Aura worth your next free hour isn't jump scares — it's the slow tightening of something is wrong here and I can't name it yet. The film leans into mystery the way the best short-format thrillers do: a small cast, a contained setting, and a story that trusts silence and suggestion over spectacle.
Behind the camera, Nidhin Bhuvanendran wears almost every hat that matters — writer, director, and the voice behind the film's music and lyrics — which gives Aura a tonal consistency you can feel scene to scene. He shares screenplay credit with lead actor Rahul Raj AS, who also anchors the film as Aravind. The forest itself becomes a character thanks to cinematographer Kannan Ambadi, while the unease in the air owes a lot to the background score from Joe Henry and Ashwin S B.
The Question Aura Doesn't Answer Up Front
What was on the other side of that portal? Did Aravind's friend fall into it — or was he taken? And is the forest doing this to Aravind on purpose, or is he just the latest person unlucky enough to wander into something that's always been waiting there?
Aura isn't in a hurry to tell you. It wants you to sit in the not-knowing for a while — and that's exactly the kind of short film worth clearing 40 minutes for.
Watch It on ShortFlix
ShortFlix is home to exactly this kind of story — sharp, original short films and series from emerging filmmakers across Tamil, Malayalam, and beyond, built for people who want a complete, gripping watch without committing to a three-hour runtime. Aura is one of the latest ShortFlix Originals to go live on the platform, available now in both Tamil and Malayalam.
