The line between utopia and dystopia is volatile in this block, in which six filmmakers imagine the disorientating future worlds into which humanity might be driven. Our relationship to aliens, machines, mindfulness, and emotion itself are tested and traversed in this thrilling – sometimes shimmering, sometimes apocalyptic-feeling – block.
Betaville
United States (5min), Dir: Dustin Donovan
A young women alters herself cybernetically in order to exact revenge on the man who had her lover killed.
33 Floors
United States (8min), Dir: Chris Austen
A woman’s journey to work takes a horrifying turn as she finds herself trapped alone inside an elevator. Impatient and scared she will soon discover that all her actions have consequences as she begins to wonder whether this state of the art technology has a mind of its own.
I Am Not Alice But Here Is Wonderland
Iran (6min), Dir: Mahdieh sadat Ahmadi soleimani
We cross the galaxies, cross different planets, and get to Earth. Alice lives with her family happily and she has friends such as the tree and the birds which has drawn. She has a happy family. She figures out that the people on the other side of the window are different. They are like wild animals in her sight. Watching people is her habit till war starts and the city is bombed.
She lose her family and the city is destroyed and Alice tries to save the only living leaves of the tree but she fells in the space and her painted birds save her and finally, she finds herself on the “little prince” planet.
Sanjay Saves The World
United Kingdom (10min), Dir: Tulsi Behl
Sanjay, a biliouse, elderly man blind to his own loneliness finds comfort in living a humdrum, unvaried life.
On a day like any other, Sanjay walks to his local park, sits on a bench and tunes his rusty old radio to the cricket channel, his favourite station, while munching on a plain cheese sandwich.
Suddenly his radio distorts and accidentally tunes in to an extra-terrestrial transmission.
Solution For Sadness
Spain (15min), Dir: Marc Martínez Jordán, Tuixén Benet
A mysterious package offers a woman a reprieve from her melancholy, only its results are more permanent and pervasive then she realizes.
Venus
United Kingdom (14min), Dir: Andrew McGee
Iris, torn out of her idyllic digital world and uploaded into a stolen synthetic body by her grieving mother, must face her body’s objectification and violent potential in a dark future.
This block will play on Saturday 28th August at 8pm (GMT+1). The block will play for approximately 58 minutes and be followed by a Q&A with any of the filmmakers who are in attendance. View our 2021 programme here.
Oxford Shorts 
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