
Graeme Arnfield’s kaleidoscopic essay film revolves around the story of Dr. Joseph Popp, an evolutionary biologist and architect of one of the earliest known examples of ransomware. In 1989, Dr. Popp distributed 20,000 floppy disks containing what would come to be known as the digital AIDS virus – a malevolent trojan horse that scrambled the contents of the victims’ computers and offered to unlock them only in return for a ‘licensing fee.’ Working with a range of digitally manipulated found footage, Arnfield explores the legacy of Popp’s virus drawing surprising connections to the US invasion of Panama, the construction of a butterfly conservatory in New York and the aesthetics of computational art.
On the Road captures the bleak, hyper-masculine world of long-haul trucking in Northern Mexico, where anything can and will happen. A hard-boiled, neon-noir romantic thriller, it shows the gritty reality of roadside diners, truck stops, and truck cemeteries alongside the expansive, breathless beauty of the Mexican desert highways.
It is up to the community to decide if this film is a force for enlightenment or not.
Omaha reminds us of what it can feel like to look at old family photographs. You sit with the bittersweetness, allowing it to wash over you; not drowning in it, but certainly affected by it.
Sonic is a pretty generic buddy comedy with a light dusting of eccentricity.
'Airplane Mode' is a young adult movie that is about a woman who learns to step away from her smartphone, and from social media.