FROM.BEYOND
2022 · 14m · Norway
Directed by Fredrik S. Hana
Genres: experimental, horror, sci-fi
Tones: dark, darkly comic, provocative
A kaleidoscopic portrait of humanity's first contact with alien life, told through faux archival footage spanning multiple formats, languages, and perspectives. The film argues that if aliens arrived, mankind would inevitably study them, conquer them, and exploit them — capturing awe hammered to death by human messiness.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Two years of practical effects, no script, four languages, faux archival mixtape of first contact. This is the formal swing I keep wishing more sci-fi shorts would take — Hana's clearly possessed.
Hana shoots over two years across four languages and multiple formats with no complete script and entirely practical effects — found-footage-as-mixtape in the Cronenbergian register. Genuine formal daring; awe hammered to death by human messiness is the right framing.
Constructed as a mixtape of disparate cinematic formats and aspect ratios with no complete script, shot over two years in four languages with entirely practical creature effects — that found-footage-stumbled-upon ethos is the right form for first-contact unease. 14 minutes of true cinematic anarchy.
Reviews
As disturbing as it is beautiful — if Gaspar Noé and Harmony Korine's bastard love child made an alien invasion film.
Gives the impression that it shouldn't even be watched, as if it was something the audience has stumbled upon.
Festivals
- Fantasia International Film Festival 2022, Best International Short Film
- Nordic Panorama Film Festival 2022, Best Nordic Short Film
- Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2022, Best Short Film
- Overlook Film Festival 2022, Special Jury Award
- Sitges - Catalonia International Film Festival 2022, Méliès d'Or (Best European Fantastic Short Film)
- Fantastic Fest 2022
- Beyond Fest 2022