Locusts Beyond A Phantasia
2024 · 15m · UK
Directed by Efosa Osaghae
Genres: drama, fantasy, romance
Tones: contemplative, surreal, tender
A man's sight-restoring surgery leaves his vision warped, so he uses a Polaroid camera to fact-check what he sees. In a park he clocks a cloned man, a dog standing upright, and hooded dancers — and the prints can't agree.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Surrealism with a chain of custody. The Polaroid becomes evidence and nobody trusts it, including the film.
Sight-restoration as fantasy-realist premise — Efosa Osaghae is reaching for a Sembène-meets-Beasts-of-the-Southern-Wild register, which is ambitious in a way I want to support.
Polaroid photography as a diegetic reality-check tool inside a quietly surreal world — a sight-restoring surgery leaving warped vision, cloned men, upright dogs, hooded dancers — Blow-Up-by-way-of-Strawberry-Mansion is a genuinely interesting frame.