DocHouse Shorts: Future Present

As this new superpower grows and re-shapes our lives, this programme of short-but-perfectly-formed-docs brings into question the role we play as enablers of this existentially challenging technology.

Programme

Our Ark | dir. Deniz Tortum, Kathryn Hamilton | 13′
A gray lizard with yellow spots sits quietly on a tree stump, as digital cameras revolve around it. Click, click, click—the lizard is captured from every angle. Our Ark begins with a company that is making 3D copies of every animal on Earth—starting with the endangered species. A kind of virtual Noah’s ark.

Jizai | dir. Endo Maiko | 14′
In a laboratory, a child is the object of a mysterious experiment. Aided by a robotic prosthesis – or is it the other way round? – the child receives sense data from our world: the sound of water, the feeling of the sun, courage, dreams. What does an AI need to feed on to push the limits of human abilities?

Uncanny Me | dir. Katharina Pethke | 45′
Lale is a hard-working photo model. She spends all her time creating a robotic form of perfection, and on her way between photo sessions and hotel rooms, she wonders if there is still any space left for the real Lale. But now she’s discovered a way to get more freedom, she explains to her mother. She can get her body scanned to create a digital clone that can also become a model, in the virtual world. But what if this avatar starts living a life of its own? Before leaping into the abyss, she decides to find out more about the moral and other implications.

Beneath Which Rivers Flow | dir. Ali Yahya | 16′
In the marshlands of Southern Iraq, Ibrahim and his family live in solitude as strangers to the outside world, their lives tethered to the river, the reeds, and the buffalo they tend. Silent and withdrawn, Ibrahim finds comfort only in his buffalo, his sole companion. But as the rivers dry and the landscape withers, Ibrahim faces unrelenting forces threatening the only life he has ever known, and the only creature he has ever understood.