Rob Munday
As a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, I’ve read enough books and watched enough TV/Movies to know that it’s not the living dead that you need to be afraid of at the end of the world, just the living. People always end up as the biggest threat to one another once the end-of-days sets in and in Carlos Gómez-Trigo’s explosive sci-fi short Survivers, the biggest danger this trio encounter…are each other.
“This is not a drill. Please Stay indoors. Help is on its way”
When you think of a science fiction film, you probably instantly imagine far-off galaxies and spaceships, but Survivers is much more down to earth. Opening in an near-empty car park, the short introduces its three central characters as they sit in a car, the glow from their live-saving headgear emanating eerily from the vehicle. An unidentified voice, blasting from a loud speaker nearby, provides us with all the basic information – “This is not a drill. Please Stay indoors. Help is on its way” – we need to understand their situation. With their conversation revealing the zone they find theirselves in “should” be free of gas shortly, the trio have to decide when they should take off their headgear.
For a short so focused on the end of humanity, Survivers is a funny film and although the idea originated through light-hearted conversations the director had with his friends, there’s undoubtedly a dark heart beating below it’s surface. As Gómez-Trigo confirms as we discuss the origins of his story: “Between exchanging cheap philosophy and personal jokes; we realized that we have become an apathetic society, both physically and intellectually. Stretching this concept to the extreme and looking at it through a moral lens, a question comes up: a society that has thrown away its ability to do great things, would it deserve a second chance to survive?”
“I’m quite interested in how stupid human beings can be” – director Carlos Gómez-Trigo admits as we discuss his short
Despite this grandiose question at its core, one of Gómez-Trigo’s other aims for the short was to give its audience a “good time” and it’s this balance between thought-provoking and fun that I really enjoyed in Survivers. Upon an initial viewing, I jumped and laughed at all the right places and having watched it at Encounters in 2021, its stuck with me ever since. However, the lasting impact of the short isn’t just in its most shocking seconds – although they are great – but in the space between them. It’s in these “limbo” moments, as your ears are ringing and mind-swimming, that Gómez-Trigo’s short real gets its hooks into you, as you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The director describes the journey of his film as a “long process”, as struggles with finances meant the shoot didn’t get going as early as they would have liked. The patience and effort was all worth it though, as not only did Survivers have a solid festival run – playing Fantasia, Filmquest, Foyle and a selection of other festivals that don’t begin with an F – it feel tailor made for online. Short, sharp and shocking, this is the type of mind-blowing sci-fi I love to champion on SotW. With the director now working on a new short (Tribu), a feature and a TV series, lets hope for more of the same.