Similo
2014 · 23m · España
Directed by Bruno Zacarías, MacGregor
Genres: drama, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
2065: the entire planet suffers the effects of climate change, and one of the few places that still remain habitable is Antarctica, where large corporations build private cities; Hebe and Ciro are together again: she seeks love, he seeks his own identity.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Climate apocalypse romance in corporate Antarctica sounds like every prestige sci-fi checkbox, but the fact that I'm not instantly hostile to it means something's off in the best way—probably the filmmakers betting everything on intimate melancholy instead of spectacle.
Zacarías and MacGregor situate their intimate two-hander within the formal language of cli-fi worldbuilding, using the distant habitable city as counterpoint rather than spectacle—a restrained approach to the genre that recalls the emotional architecture of earlier speculative cinema.
The precision here isn't in the premise but in whatever tonal choice keeps a 23-minute film about two people reclaiming connection in a dying world from collapsing into sentiment—that single disciplined breath between melancholy and hope is everything.