Delphi
2016 · 26m · Denmark
Directed by Søren Peter Langkjær Bojsen
Genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Two young tech founders build an app that predicts users' needs; as it becomes a global success, it threatens their friendship and personal autonomy.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise is almost too on-the-nose—tech bro parable, friendship-versus-empire, we've seen the Silicon Valley guilt trip before—but Bojsen's real subversion is how little the app actually matters; he treats the prediction engine as a MacGuffin and makes the film about something weirder: the erosion of mystery between people who know each other too well.
A formally precise dissection of the Prometheus narrative recast through contemporary venture capitalism, with the restraint and compositional control of someone thinking seriously about Fincher and Sorkin's structural DNA—the editing creates distance exactly when the characters are closest.
The film's lever is a single recurring shot of one founder staring at the other across a table with the app's interface between them, and Bojsen keeps tightening that frame until you realize the app has become a mirror; it's a small formal choice that transforms what could've been a lecture into something genuinely claustrophobic.
Reviews
Young Director Soren Peter Langkjaer Bojsen won over the jury at the CFP-E/shots YDA show at Cannes Lions this year, earning himself the Special Jury Award for his film, Delphi. The style warps and becomes more unreal as we travel down the rabbit hole.
Festivals
- Aspen Shortsfest 2017, Official Selection
- Cannes Lions (YDA) 2017, Special Jury Award