RECORD/PLAY
2013 · 11m · USA
Directed by Jesse Atlas
Genres: drama, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
A sci-fi short in which a malfunctioning audio device that exists beyond normal time and space brings two people across a divide of conflict and fate, exploring themes of destiny and romantic connection.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Atlas centers the entire emotional payload on what a recording device retains versus what it loses — that gap between what was captured and what cannot be, is where the film quietly breaks your heart. The sound design is working harder than any image here.
A broken walkman transcending space and time in a war-and-romance sci-fi short. Eleven minutes. The whole pitch is a Black Mirror logline. Comparisons to Lake Mungo? Please.
Sound as the supernatural conduit — the sci-fi logic built around what a recording can and cannot preserve of a person. The walkman-across-spacetime premise risks twee but the genre commitment is real.