To Be
1990 · 10m · Canada
Directed by John Weldon
Tones: contemplative, provocative
In this animated short, a scientist's machine that can perfectly copy objects and people raises unsettling ethical and safety questions about what makes a person who they are.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Weldon's duplication machine is a neat philosophical trap, but it plays the ontology question pretty straight—the film knows exactly what it wants to say about identity and doesn't really fight itself, which is a missed opportunity for something weirder.
A formally precise meditation on personhood that sits comfortably in the lineage of Borges and philosophical animation; Weldon's restraint in execution—the measured pacing, the clean geometric design—lets the conceptual weight do the work without ever reaching for easy emotional manipulation.
The genius move is how Weldon uses the machine's clinical efficiency—those perfectly timed duplications, the symmetrical frames—to make abstraction feel claustrophobic; it's a film that understands animation as the ideal medium for this specific existential vertigo.