This past week, Writer Director Brenton Gieser’s short film LOOP was released on YouTube, courtesy of the Dust channel. LOOP follows a woman who has the opportunity to join an exclusive next level virtual reality-type world, where her emotions will no longer rule over her life.

Synopsis –

In a near-future world where technology has rendered most human labor obsolete, Zoe Pearce, a despairing artist, is selected as a finalist for the UNIverse Challenge: humanity’s most coveted prize, and a chance at complete digital immersion where pain and unwanted emotion are engineered away and replaced by perfect peace. 

Inside Unimate’s selection process, Zoe and her fellow finalists are asked to prove they deserve to be relieved of their suffering. But Zoe carries something into that room that the company has not accounted for, and the closer she gets to winning, the clearer it becomes that she is not there for the prize.

LOOP asks whether true peace comes from escaping our pain or learning to move through it.

In our current world, whenever we venture onto the internet, our data and personal information is being hoovered up and analysed. LOOP takes that to the next level. Zoe is struggling to get on with her life after a bereavement, and the UNIverse promises to help her move past that, by entering a state where she will no longer feel grief and pain. If your emotions are taken from you, though, can you continue to be yourself, or do you lose some of your humanity?

UNIverse numbs you to the world, but it is not an altruistic endeavour. The system needs data points, it needs human emotional input in order to develop and grow. This is corporate data mining on a revolutionary scale, and if we accede to an escalating demand for personal information, personal experience, we risk becoming purely a resource for the capitalist machine.

LOOP explores all this, and more, in a slow, measured story wherein the ultimate intent is revealed not until the very end. It’s a thought-provoking film, and definitely worth checking out.

LOOP is written and directed by Brenton Gieser, and stars Syra McCarthy, Mitya Savelau, and Nika Burnett. You can watch LOOP 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.

https://www.youtube.com/@watchdust/featured

---

Cyberstopia now has a Discord server! Please join us and build a community for cyberpunk and dystopia discussion. We have sections for all the latest news, channels for discussion of The Ghost in the Shell series, as well as upcoming shows like Edgrerunners 2, Blade Runner 2099, and Neuromancer, as well as an author section with a number of cyberpunk authors talking about their work, giving updates on your current projects, etc… It’s a great place to hang out.
https://discord.gg/ETgkwzHQ5