Alpha 27
2024 · 12m · USA
Directed by Nick Azzaro
Genres: drama, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
In a distant future where overpopulation has forced Earth to deport every non-Earth-born person back to their origin outpost, two lovers — Diego, from the colony Alpha 27, and Marcus, from Earth — try to hold onto their connection across the void of space.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Here's the thing everyone will get wrong: they'll call this a sci-fi romance and move on, missing that Azzaro actually inverted the whole apparatus—the deportation machinery is just window dressing for a story about how systems atomize intimacy, and that's genuinely unsettling in a way most 'subversive' shorts aren't brave enough to sit with.
Azzaro locates himself squarely in the lineage of science fiction as emotional allegory—Solaris ancestry visible in the framing—and the restraint here is what matters: he refuses the climactic revelation or redemptive gesture, instead letting the cosmological distance become the full statement, which reads as formally rigorous even when it costs the audience catharsis.
The entire film hinges on what Azzaro does with the audio design during the transmission sequences—the degradation, the delay, the silence between words—and that single choice of letting absence speak louder than dialogue is what transforms a high-concept premise into something that actually breaks your chest.
Reviews
A poignant exploration of love and separation set against a richly imagined sci-fi backdrop.
Lack of originality is okay if the execution is done right, and Alpha 27 is a profound example of that.
Festivals
- HollyShorts Film Festival 2024