Clark is quarantined. All that exists within his minimalist quarters are a bed, a toilet, and a large video screen that constantly loops selective imagery. Each day an omnipresent voice instructs Clark through his daily routines, an experience that he has been going through his entire life seemingly without a hitch. That all soon begins to change…

As the omnipresent voice leads Clark through his current daily tests, a growing fixation with a woman from the video loop is revealed. As he grows more aggravated with his directives from the omnipresent voice, he starts lashing out. This all culminates during an anger filled tantrum and a futile attempt to escape, and ends when he knocks himself unconscious. Later, he seemingly awakes to find the exit door open, and takes the opportunity to explore the outside world he’s never seen.

Director’s Statement’

The concept is derived from Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” This is my science fiction take on that material, and the goal is to show how mass media through iconography and popular culture influences and shapes our identity.

The idea that sex and violence are used to drive most media, whether it is entertainment or marketing, is a focal point of this film. Since the protagonist is male, I wanted to showcase how said media shapes masculinity into something that is sex driven, which causes men to look at women as objects of desire and symbols of conquest for their manhood.

In order to do this I wanted to strip down the protagonist’s environment to be completely minimal except for the media that is being fed to him. Clark knows nothing else than this reality, and even though his environment is driving him mad, when he is given the option to leave he is overwhelmed with fear. Clark realizes that the place outside his quarantine is so incomprehensible, that he does not desire to leave his prison anymore, for he knows no better life.