A modern love story between a boy and his phone hand. And a girl and her phone hand. And a boy and a girl… and then it really gets weird.
We are already cyborgs.
Our phones are constantly connected to us, in our pockets, in our hands, staring us in the face. We are smarter and dumber because of them. They have altered our reality, they have intermingled with our memory, they have evolved our… physicality?
Wyatt never really thought too much about the fact that an iPhone had taken the place of his right hand. If anything it was a good trade — always ready and available without having to carry it around, and he didn’t even have to worry about dropping it.
But when a series of mishaps leads to his imprisonment and interrogation by a very unusual “person,” who talks and sounds just like Siri, in some sort of middle ground between the real world and his online life, he takes action and tries to escape the screen world to find real connection again. But will anyone come with him? Or even realize he’s gone?
A love story for modern times, Us+Them is a metaphor for our modern world and addiction to our devices. It explores the merging of human and machine, real experience vs. mediated experience, and the choices we make to create moments where we truly love being alive.
Watch the trailer
Who made it
Director’s statement
My concept for this film originated with the observation that our devices are so omnipresent in our lives (and in our hands) that we’ve basically began evolving into some sort of hybrid between humans and our technology. And that’s just the start… my real question is where are we headed, and does anyone even care?
As a lover of all things adventure and “real,” I find it perplexing that so many of us are drawn into artificial worlds so easily. What will the implications be as technology continues to evolve, and us along with it?
The first iPhone was released in 2008, only 18 years ago, and in that short time they have completely transformed human behavior. As AI, virtual reality, and other technologies mature at increasingly rapid rates, what does our future look like, and are most people really thinking about it?
My hope is that our film is an entertaining, foreboding and thought provoking experience that leads to conversation and self analysis in regards to our relationship between technology, each other, and ourselves.