"Meatspace" Short film selected for Chong Qing, China film festival Nov 21-29

Director/producer Gianpaolo Lupori's intriguing short film follows the theme of lost youth in modern China. Many young Chinese spend so much time online that they never talk about being in "cyberspace." Instead, their "real" lives are referred to as spending time in "meatspace." This presents a vision reminiscent of Clockwork Orange but with the director's keen insight into the gentler and more restrained nature of Chinese youth. It is in fact the very restraint and lack of power, that drives this story forward. Richard Trombly co-produced this Shanghainese-language short.

Synopsis

Among the millions pursuing a better life in the technologically saturated city of Shanghai, four dissatisfied ordinary youngsters drift between reality and cyberspace as they attempt to transform their nondescript lives by posting a series of controversial videos on the Internet.

The virtual quest, however, soon turns into a nightmare as the backlash response to their posts spills out into the real world to haunt and track them down.

Statement

Over the past years, the Internet has not only had a deep effect on the way we interact with each other, but also how we determine our personalities and relate to our surroundings. individuals are now able to creatively engineer their persona, giving new relevance to enduring philosophical investigations on the nature of identity and reality. The extensive influence the Internet has on individual and collective patterns of behavior has also spawned numerous alternative cultures that already present complex hierarchical structures, beliefs, mythologies and parallel economies.

While critics are concerned that these virtual behaviors are unraveling an already fragile social fabric and destabilizing traditional values, others believe cyberspace has provided its inhabitants an opportunity to escape their worries, broaden their horizons and satisfy emotional needs.

However - as is the case with any fledgling alternative culture - while they struggle to break out of conformist patterns, these individuals may find themselves completely disorientated, possibly facing irreversible alienation.

‘Meatspace’ is a poetically licensed reflection on some these social, psychological and cultural alterations generated by virtual interactions between individuals.

Inspired by true accounts, as well as research into various cyber cultures, ‘Meatspace’ investigates the dysfunctional relationships members of these newborn cultures may establish with the various alteregoes the Internet enables them to create. The film also attempts reveal some of the difficulties they may face as they struggle to reconcile their disembodied, virtual experiences with their material lives and the devastating effects it may have on the individual.

The movie refuses to take sides, choosing rather to ally itself with its characters, sympathetically portraying difficulties of individuals trapped between two equally menacing realities; describing how lack of prospects, human contact and self esteem may drive someone to burrow themselves completely into a parallel reality where they may experience the artificial freedom of recreating themselves.