Decksdark
2024 · 16m · UK
Directed by Kane Wilson
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
In a dystopian near-future where neural implants enforce curfews and digital control, Logan — a solitary fugitive known as a 'Decksdark' — flees off-grid into the wilderness and encounters an ethereal entity that offers him a path back to the natural world.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Decksdark commits the cardinal sin of most sci-fi shorts—it actually earns its mysticism instead of just bolting it onto a premise—but the real subversion is that it doesn't care whether you buy the dystopia or the entity; it's playing a different game entirely, and it works.
Wilson's decision to ground high-concept sci-fi in the formal language of landscape cinema—all restraint and negative space—positions this film in a lineage closer to Tarkovksy than to Black Mirror, which is both its ambition and its formal risk.
Shot in three days with a skeleton crew, the film could've been a proof-of-concept, but the singular choice to let the Welsh wilderness become a character rather than backdrop—letting silence and light carry the narrative weight—is what transforms constraint into aesthetic conviction.
Reviews
Handpicked — 5 Stars.
In a dystopian world of implants and curfews, a fugitive finds an unlikely ally.
Festivals
- Carmarthen Bay Film Festival 2025, Best Short Made in Wales
- Sunrise Film Festival 2025
- British International Amateur Film Festival (BIAFF) 2025
- Big Picture Film Festival 2025
- WOW Film Festival 2025