LSFF 2025: The Last Invention

Are we approaching a technological singularity? Are we seeing a technocratic dystopia dawning upon us? As we are marching towards the fourth decade of the 21st century, new technology has only become more scary than exciting, more uncanny than friendly. Films in this program reflect such anxiety of ours, and beg the question—as they move between documentary and speculative fiction: Is this a future we want?

There are many films in the program that blend experimental elements of AI with conventional filmmaking. A docu-fiction of rediscovered Bangladroids who recall, in poetry, their past lives. A farce about a man obsessed with a broken bench underpinned by a rock. From a brief history of 20th century technological advance, to a crash course on AI literacy and how to safeguard our genuine reality, then to the invasion of social media that has fundamentally reconfigured the coming-of-age years of teenagers, you are here for unhinged images, unsettling stories, and visualisation of outlandish worlds where technology seems to be demanding its own autonomy — if not its control over us humans.

We Made Telephones, dir. Ben Young, UK 2024, 10mins

Christmas, Every Day, dir. Faye Tsakas, USA 2024, 14mins

Data Flesh, dir. Felipe Elgueta, Chile 2024, 5mins

The Future Can Be Yours, dir. Simon Ball, UK 2024, 9mins

The Oasis I Deserve, dir. Inès Sieulle, France 2022, 22mins

Do Bangladroids Dream of Electric Tagore?, dir. Aleem Hossain, USA 2024, 3mins

The Moment of Truth, dir. David Baksh, UK 2024, 13mins

Nobody Wants To Fix Things Anymore, dir. Joseph Wilcox, USA 2023, 4mins

Shokouk: A Cosmicomedy in Four Acts, dir. Felix Kalmenson / Rouzbeh Akhbari, Uzbekistan, 17mins