No sooner is technology conceived than it gets personal. Humans have been defined by our scope of tool use, and this extends effortlessly into our complex interpersonal relationships. So naturally computer dating preexists both the internet and the home computer by years, first deployed by Harvard students in Operation Match, on a mainframe, in 1965. ARPANET, the major precursor of the internet, wouldn't even emerge until 1969. Fifty years later, the evolving technologically-mediated match has been joined by leaps in telecommunications, genetics, pharmacology and every other zone of scientific advancement -- so many apparatuses that may bring us together or keep us apart. And what is their net effect? Are we closer or further than before? And in another fifty years? Happy Valentine's Day, dear viewers.
A skilled programmer commences work for Galatea, a robotics company launching the next generation of personal companions. Unlike generic robot companions, the C-1000 is made to a client's precise specifications, which either give the companion a unique personality and complex individuality, or repli
In the near future, a man enters a coffee shop. He asks for his usual: a private booth hidden from everyone's sight. He waits anxiously for someone... what is really happening here?
An astrophysicist (Marion) and an extraterrestrial (Thomas) are in love. Tomorrow, they must say goodbye. It's the price they must pay to free Thomas from the horrible affliction he is suffering from on Earth. Thomas will leave our world and return to his planet. Marion accompanies him to the point
Anatole and his wife, both about seventy, have already lived togeather for fifty years. They still love each other, make love, joke about each other, avoid each other sometimes, laugh and row. Except that one morning, Anatole is discouraged. He has forgotten something important which he tries vainly
Olfactory is a dramatic sci-fi short film about memories and how they never leave us. In the film, "Olfactory" is a system that allows users to re-experience memories. Brian, an app programmer, hacks the system so he can alter his memories, but in doing so, he loses his grip on his current reality.
An optician's workday is filled by a line of extraordinary customers, who, one by one, use the optical equipments in suspicious ways.
In this experimental travelogue, efforts to sound human and look natural instead become artificial. The scenery is provided through photo-chromed vintage postcards, displaying not only scenic North American landscapes but also the rise of infrastructure and industry. Aspiring to look more realistic
Directed by speculative architect Liam Young and written by fiction author Tim Maughan, In the Robot Skies is the world's first narrative shot entirely through autonomous drones. In collaboration with the Embedded and Artificially intelligent Vision Lab in Belgium the film has evolved in the context
A fable for the media-saturated age. In a world of viral videos, memes, and fake news, cats ride skateboards and people get struck by lightning, as one man erodes the boundary between his online world and his real life.
In this animated short, Ruby the pig seeks affirmation in the city around her after witnessing the accidental death of a stranger… and finds it in surprising places. With deft humour and finely rendered detail, When the Day Breaks illuminates the links that connect our urban lives, while evok
A short story about loneliness, maladjustment and the desperate need of closeness, set in a severe winter landscape. Bernard faces the stereotype of an animal predator, one you wouldn't cross paths with. Feeling resigned, he tries to express the truth about his isolation, and suppress the call of na
In Brazil, where all things are possible, a man takes part in an extraterrestrial phone sex operation.
Stray_Cat trolls internet dating sites for a true lover to fulfill his special request, but will he ever find that wonderful someone?
"Far from the reach of the sun" is set in a near future where a government- approved drug can alter your sexuality, allowing you to be satisfied in ways that were not previously in your nature. The corporation marketing the drug targets queer men who have checked into a cruising resort which doubles
Planemo is a solitary wanderer, a sentinel of the galaxy. It is an orphaned world, a celestial body booted from its solar system by the chaos of planetary migration. In a society where everyone mindlessly orbits around their daily routines, what happens when a person gets ejected from the system? Th
In this ecofeminist jungle romance, a young research assistant learns an unexpected lesson from his distant cousins in the trees.
In the immediate future, as technology increasingly invades human existence, the Renewed® company offers personality and interest updates as a means to stay connected to the rest of society. When Isaac finds that the domotics in his home no longer respond to his requests due to a compatibility p
An ugly cat struggles to coexist in a fragmented and broken world, eventually finding a soulmate in a mystical chief. Choreographed in digital simulation errors and inspired by a story found on the internet, this could be the definitive melodrama of our times.
'Soft Awareness' is a film about the interaction between human and machine. An authentic dialogue between a young woman and an artificially intelligent computer evolves into an aesthetically refined piece of documentary sci-fi. In surrounding at once familiar and disturbingly alien, the dialogue unf
Dealing with what comes naturally isn't easy, especially for animals. In Animal Behaviour, the latest animated short from the Oscar®-winning team of Alison Snowden and David Fine (Bob's Birthday), five animals meet regularly to discuss their inner angst in a group therapy session led by Dr. Clem
A man without a memory and a woman whose success hides emptiness grapple with life in dystopian future Warsaw and are drawn into the 20th-century past. But such an escape may not be allowed. A unique love story unfolding under omnipresent crisis and totalitarian oversight, crossing between collapsin
Jamil Salhab, a young man, is admitted to a rehab center for social media addicts due to his FOMO.
In a future augmented by wearable tech and online dating, a student must risk offline dating to connect with a mysterious profile due to a failed network.
e.ro.sion follows the last days of a woman as she checks into the "Goodbye Clinic" to have her life deleted. We witness a person fade into a parallel reality where she observes the world she once felt connected to continue on without her, and the physical being of her body and soul disappear before
Watch LOVE on ARTE LOVE is a short film describing affection in 3 different chapters, through an impact on a distant solar system. Abstract haiku-like situations reveal the change in atmosphere on one planet, caused by the change of gravity and light. This pulsing planet makes the inhabitants become
Four Winds Wellness Association presents a fictional documentary on Dr. Miles Bennell and Dr. Patricia Lunbed, the founders of Link 8. The video tells the story of how Miles and Patricia meet and form a new technology that influences science and culture called Personality Sharing.
A dark fantastical tale in which a man enters into a pact with all the insect inhabitants of his rural cottage dripping with honey, sex, flies,meat... and a very sticky end. Flytopia is a short film commissioned by FILM4 uk , and is an adaptation of a Will Self story currently touring festivals roun
A woman-tampon joins a man-astronaut on a road trip to the moon. Daniel is on a mission to scatter his mother's ashes and Claude is hoping for her period to make a miraculous return. A modern tale that captures the fever dream of a first voyage to the moon.
One day, She notices, that something strange is going on with Him... Beside Oneself it's a short animation film about confrontation between ideas of things and a real world. Do we live with real people, or only with our imagination of them?
Searching for an immediate love connection, Zoe, the quintessential femme fatale, meets up with a robot on a blind date in a junkyard in Brooklyn. A tandem bike ride, Polaroid snapshots on abandoned railroad tracks, a carnal squeeze on the Gowanus canal overpass - all the ingredients that constitute
When Merlin — a computer scientist — is hired to study the inner mind of a cat, he can't help but see links to his lost love Sophia.
"PARADOXICAL" is one of the rare science fiction films from Taiwan. A man with a mysterious background meets a beautiful, enigmatic plant designer. As the two embark on a series of unconventional dates, she discovers a mysterious lottery ticket, revealing the man's true profession and overturns thei