In the not-too-distant future, a tenuous peace between humans and remarkably humanlike “machines” is tested when synthetics begin spontaneously exploding.

The war between humans and machines is now a familiar fiction story seen through numerous films in an increasing fashion over the last three decades – with each passing year getting closer to the likely inevitable reality. So it’s no surprise that this widespread fascination and perhaps fear has landed in the tear ducts of short films. The challenge at this point becomes telling a familiar story in an original fashion. Luckily the creative team at Master Key Films, lead by Rajeev Dassani, brought us an action-packed deep sci-fi thriller taking mostly place in the Middle-East, where an Arab refugee woman tries to find her way to safety in the aftermath of a massive war. That war was with our Machine Creations, and she discovered she is a suicide sleeper bomb embedded in the human population without knowledge of what she actually is. Her soldier husband must now help her get to the Machine Homeland before its too late.

The short was conceived by the Dassani bros as a way to explore conflict and violence around the world and the middle east in particular, using machines as a metaphor for the “other”. We have a feature script written and hope to have it made with the right partners.

At 20 minutes long, the film surpasses the usual standard of online films – but a needed timeline for the narrative dept the film brings. We are quickly mezmerized by the balance of breathtaking desert-scape shots intwined with some flawless and relentless visual effects work. The rest of the production also needs a high mention, as the choreography, music, acting and all the finest details come together quite magnificently which leaves us with much hope for the feature version. In the meantime check out some of the Behind The Scenes VFX work, and much more at seamfilm.com/vfx.