The Shaman
2015 · 16m
Directed by Marco Kalantari
Tones: contemplative, dark, mythic
In 2204, after seventy-three years of war against machines, a shaman prepares for a decisive confrontation between humanity's old magic and its mechanical enemy.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A shaman vs. machines in 2204—most people would sand down those edges into either hard sci-fi or fantasy cosplay, but Kalantari leans into the collision and lets both systems exist without reconciliation, which is genuinely weird and the only reason it works.
The film inherits a lineage from both Herzog's mysticism and cyberpunk's formal coldness, but it never quite settles into either tradition, leaving the viewer suspended between registers rather than held by a clear formal argument.
The decision to shoot the 'magic' as practical, tactile ritual against digital enemies—no flourishes, no VFX shortcuts—forces the camera to find tension in stillness and makes every gesture feel earned rather than gestured.