Automatonomy
2018 · 7m · Singapore
Directed by Jerrold Chong Yuan Pei
Genres: animation, drama, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, dark, tender
In a dystopian sci-fi society gripped by social unrest between humans and automatons, an orphan rescues an injured girl from the rumble of violence.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise arrives pre-packaged in dystopian drag—humans vs. machines, orphan saves girl—and Chong Yuan Pei doesn't subvert a single expectation, which would be fine if the film had the guts to lean into pulp instead of reaching for tenderness.
Formally assured animation with a clear lineage to activist sci-fi cinema, though the emotional restraint occasionally feels like craft in service of restraint rather than clarity—a film aware of its own seriousness in ways both productive and limiting.
The decision to render violence as abstraction—smoke, silhouette, negative space—while keeping the two children tactilely present transforms what could've been rote dystopia into something genuinely intimate and haunting.