A Look at the Dumber Side of Tech – ‘5 Short Films About Technology’
by Alex Billington
June 16, 2021
Source: YouTube
“Quit lurking my friends!” Is technology making us dumber? (Rhetorical question.) This thought is explored in this amusing short created by filmmaker Peter Huang based in Toronto. 5 Films About Technology is a brisk five minute short featuring five vignettes about “the dumber side of technology.” As described, a satire about people staring into screens. This initially premiered in 2016 and stopped by the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, where I first saw it years ago, before earning quite a bit of acclaim. Huang has since taken on a number of directing jobs and recently made an extended series of these “films about technology” for FXX’s Cake called Nine Films About Technology. Which is why our friends at Short of the Week have picked up on this short again and brought it to our attention. We never shared it back in 2017, so what better time than now to feature this wickedly funny and brutally honest take on just how tech has made everyone dumb.
Want to see more of these? You can watch Huang’s series based on this as part of FXX’s Cake comedy block.
Thanks to Short of the Week for the tip on this one. Description from YouTube: “A look at the dumber side of technology.” Enough said. A short satire about people staring into screens. 5 Films About Technology is both written and directed by Chinese filmmaker Peter Huang based in Toronto, Canada – you can see more of his work on Vimeo or visit his official website. It’s produced by Jonathan Keltz and Evan M. Landry. This originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2016, and also played at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. These premieres got him a few more gigs and he finally produced a new series for FXX’s Cake called Nine Films About Technology, featuring nine episodes inspired by this original short. For more info on this film, visit its official website or read SOTW’s 2021 interview. To discover more shorts, click here. Thoughts?
