I usually don’t watch video. The format bores me. But I found this short film about the current developments amazing.

Normally, when I start watching a feature film, I skip past the intro. Then, I watch for a minute or two before I get impatient and start skipping all over the movie, trying to get a feel for what it’s about. After some 30 seconds or so of this activity, I give up and go to Wikipedia to read the plot line instead. Sometimes, I go back to the movie afterwards.

In other words, I have absolutely no patience for the video format, where I can’t evaluate if something is interesting and relevant before having seen all of it in real time. I feel it’s disrespectful of my time and attention to take away my possibility of gradually evaluating if something deserves more attention, as I can do with anything in text format.

This short film, however, had me absorbed from the get-go. When it was over, it felt like 30 seconds had passed. That in itself is remarkable – but the short film also communicates a very chilling insight into where we’re going. The movie is about ever-increasing surveillance, and how it always ends up where we don’t want it – with quite a few surprises baked in.

In the movie, DNA scanners are everywhere, and links your DNA with centralized access control lists to everything. Predictably, it started out as a convenience, until legislation stipulated that law enforcement can and shall have access to all of it. The plot twists towards the end are gripping.

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Watch it here. Or don’t. Watch it in fullscreen HD on YouTube. There’s also a Facebook page for discussing directly with the film’s crew, including the director Dennis Liu.

And on a meta-level, this really shows how you can be successful without a traditional movie studio. It was filmed on consumer-level equipment; Canon 5D and 7D.

(Via Hax, via Lake, both in Swedish.)