BACKUP
Gerrit Kuge I 2023 I Short Animation I 5.1 I ’29 I DCP

German with English subtitles

I worked on „Backup“ as Animation Director, working closely from the start with author and director Gerrit Kuge in developing the visual style of the film. Because most of the film was set in a digital space , we experimented with early machine learning diffusion models, to develop a world which feels organic, but strangely „wrong“ and glitchy.

Synopsis

The sun has collapsed. The Apocalypse is 8 minutes away. The last few survivors have fled into the world of digital dreams, the Dream Machine. The machine delays the inevitable: it stretches the last 8 minutes to 12000 years. Inside this machine Lena and David try to find meaning in this world without a future.
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Die Sonne kollabiert. Die Menschheit hat noch 8 Minuten, dann wird die Erde ausgelöscht. Die letzten Überlebenden sind in die Welt digitaler Träume geflohen, die Traum-
maschine. Die Maschine verzögert das Unvermeidliche:
In ihr werden die letzten 8 Minuten der Menschheit zu
12 000 Jahren ausgedehnt. Lena und David versuchen den Sinn in einer Welt ohne Zukunft zu finden.