SmartSkin
2026 · 2m
Directed by Hugo Bésikian
Genres: drama, experimental, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
The film plunges into the thoughts of a synthetic mannequin — a robot, an AI created to replace today's top models and become tomorrow's immortal icons.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A synthetic mannequin's interiority — finally someone asks the question nobody wants to hear answered, and Bésikian doesn't flinch from how grotesque and lucid the reply becomes. This is the kind of premise that makes programmers nervous, which means it's probably essential.
The film's formal restraint — its refusal to sentimentalize the synthetic subject — places it in productive dialogue with science fiction's long meditation on personhood and representation, though the two-minute constraint leaves its conceptual rigor somewhat unresolved.
The decision to inhabit the mannequin's consciousness rather than observe it from the outside is what animates this; that single tonal choice transforms what could've been a clever concept into something genuinely unsettling.