When markets crash, connections fail, memory cards corrupt and logic boards burn out, what becomes of our augmented selves? A programme of short films reflecting the impact of technologies on human identity, consciousness, love and society under late capitalism.
To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion – A woman on the verge of a corporate breakdown. The air is all but sucked out of Valentin Noujaïm’s deliciously miasmic horror set in La Défense, Europe’s largest purpose-built business district on the outskirts of Paris. Ambitious executive Claire (played by Saint Omer’s Kayije Kagame) is pitching a new skyscraper when she begins to descend into a fugue state fueled by visions of violent alienation.
for here I am sitting in a tin can far above the world – A woman dreams of a future economic crisis affecting the cryptocurrency market. Thousands have been cryogenized, waiting for better times… Gala Hernández López’ densely researched, engrossing two-channel work is a dizzying psychedelic epistolary laden with doom and unease. Are we all suspended, falling into the void? And what strange relationship do we have with the future?
Loveboard – Through obsolete components of plastic and metal, a journey into the digital vestiges of what remains when first love fades. The idea of the gadget-as-body is playfully explored through the literal and figurative deconstruction of a broken phone. From the fragments of found archive blooms a parallel movement of lingering resistance against the ephemeral quality of our digital selves and a tender reflection on what endures.
To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion | Dir. Valentin Noujaïm | France | 2024 | 14m | French with English subtitles
for here I am sitting in a tin can far above the world | Dir. Gala Hernández López | France | 2023 | 18m | English
Loveboard | Dir. Felipe Casanova | Switzerland, Belgium | 2023 | 17m | French with English subtitles
Content warning: Needles