World of Tomorrow already won the Grand Jury Prize for the short film category at this year’s Sundance and was presented a couple of weeks ago at SXSW. And even when it was shown amongst a myriad of other shorts from talented directors, World of Tomorrow was simply in a league of its own – so much so that it won the best animated short prize in Austin as well.
The 16-minute film is Don Hertzfeldt’s latest work and tells the story of a three-year old girl invited to discover a vision of her own not-entirely-dystopian future, and by extension that of the whole world. While the adult guiding her through the events to come paints a rather dreadful picture, the child gleefully lacks any understanding of what her and her kind are set to face.
To the image of the child on the receiving end of it, the story-telling is simple, naive, fast-flowing and ends up on the edge of tragicomedy. The chain of events isn’t trivial to follow but it consistenly makes sense in a twisted kind of way – like a long-winded, animated installment of SMBC. Simply said, World of Tomorrow packs more sci-fi punch than most full-feature movies, with themes touching to immortality, time-travel, conscience, communication, ethics.
Below is the one-minute trailer – I wholeheartedly recommend renting the full-length version which was released today on Vimeo.
WORLD OF TOMORROW : Teaser trailer from don hertzfeldt on Vimeo.