diff --git a/modules/attention/backends/flex.py b/modules/attention/backends/flex.py
index e9b203786..c5e6a9d25 100644
--- a/modules/attention/backends/flex.py
+++ b/modules/attention/backends/flex.py
@@ -4,15 +4,18 @@ from modules.attention.registry import AttentionBackend, Constraints, Platform
 
 
 def prepare(platform: Platform, original): # pylint: disable=unused-argument
-    from torch.nn.attention.flex_attention import flex_attention, create_block_mask
+    from torch.nn.attention.flex_attention import create_block_mask
+    from modules.attention.sparse import flex as sparse_flex
 
     def causal_mask(b, h, q_idx, kv_idx): # pylint: disable=unused-argument
         return q_idx >= kv_idx
 
     def call(query, key, value, attn_mask, dropout_p, is_causal, scale, enable_gqa, selection=None): # pylint: disable=unused-argument
         if selection is not None:
-            from modules.attention.sparse import flex as sparse_flex
             return sparse_flex.attend(query, key, value, selection, scale=scale, enable_gqa=enable_gqa)
+        # compiled, always: eager flex_attention materializes the whole score matrix, which is
+        # tens of gigabytes at video sequence lengths and fails in the driver rather than cleanly
+        flex_attention = sparse_flex.flex_call()
         score_mod = None
         block_mask = None
         if attn_mask is not None: