THE HUMAN SURGE
A film by Eduardo Williams
2016, 97 minutes
2016, 97 minutes
No. 071
Narrative
Narrative
Description
One of the year’s most bracingly original debuts, Eduardo Williams The Human Surge is global journey that jumps without warning from Argentina to the Philippines to Mozambique; a road movie that fuses fiction and documentary for a portrait of today’s youth at a time of economic uncertainty and illusory hyper-connection.
Buenos Aires. Exe, 25 years old, has just lost his job and is not looking for another one. His neighbors and friends seem as odd to him as they always do. Online, he meets Alf, a boy from Mozambique who is also bored with his job and who is about to follow Archie, another boy who has run away into the jungle. Through the dense vegetation of the forest, Archie tracks ants back to their nest. One of them wanders off course and comes across Canh, a Filipino, sitting on top of a giant heap of earth and who is about to go back to his strange, beautiful home town and his mundane job.
Buenos Aires. Exe, 25 years old, has just lost his job and is not looking for another one. His neighbors and friends seem as odd to him as they always do. Online, he meets Alf, a boy from Mozambique who is also bored with his job and who is about to follow Archie, another boy who has run away into the jungle. Through the dense vegetation of the forest, Archie tracks ants back to their nest. One of them wanders off course and comes across Canh, a Filipino, sitting on top of a giant heap of earth and who is about to go back to his strange, beautiful home town and his mundane job.
Festivals
Winner, Special Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival
Official Selection, New York Film Festival
Official Selection, Toronto Film Festival
Official Selection, New York Film Festival
Official Selection, Toronto Film Festival
Reviews
“Singular and unclassifiable.” – Sight & Sound
The most ambitious debut of the year. A shrewd commentary on the dissonance of technological connectivity and personal communication.” – Indiewire
“Visually thrilling.” – Frieze Magazine
“I had an acute sense of seeing things that I’d actually never seen before in a movie.” – Artforum
"A staggeringly accomplished first feature seems to indicate the arrival of a prodigious new talent in international cinema." – Filmmaker Magazine
The most ambitious debut of the year. A shrewd commentary on the dissonance of technological connectivity and personal communication.” – Indiewire
“Visually thrilling.” – Frieze Magazine
“I had an acute sense of seeing things that I’d actually never seen before in a movie.” – Artforum
"A staggeringly accomplished first feature seems to indicate the arrival of a prodigious new talent in international cinema." – Filmmaker Magazine
