This past week, director Ed Willey’s sci-fi short film Downsized was released on YouTube, courtesy of the Dust channel. The story sees a fired office worker in a race against time to retrieve the consciousness of his deceased wife.
Synopsis –
On his last day of work, a software engineer attempts to salvage the digital remains of his wife before being discovered by his coworker.
Downsized is an interesting story about the consciousness of, presumably dying, people’s consciousness being saved using computer storage, in a decaying world. Presided over by an obnxious supervisor, Raymond is responsible for downloading the clients’ consciousness onto the system, which enables them to be ‘online all the time’, offering them digital freedom. On his last day on the job, Raymond sees a chance to bring his wife, currently ditized, into a physical body once again. This is obviouslyvery much against protocol, however, and if he’s discovered, the results might not be quite what he intended.
Rather than portraying it using cutting edge technology, director Willey has gone for a much more low-tech, old school computer feel. This, coupled with the dank, dark, and mostly desertyed offices in which the process is carried out give Ratymond’s last day very much an ‘end of days’ feel to it. Though short, the film manages to be in turns dark, comedic, and poignant.
Downsized is written and directed by Ed Willey. It stars Liam Fleming, Neil Linpow, and Rebecca Todd. It is tense, and poignant, and raises questions about the ethics of storing a deceased person’s mind after they have died. You can watch Downsized on YouTube, for free, below.
Dust is a curated YouTube channel of independent short films, all in the science fiction genre, and they have a wide selection of well produced, thought provoking sci-fi films, all available to watch for free. We highly recommend checking them out.
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