Xam

Xam is a sci-fi exploration on the future of surveillance and body hacking. While in the London subway, an unsuspecting man opens a strange text, rendering him unconscious and dragging him through a wormhole. He awakes, lost, on the train tracks in Kiev, Ukraine, unable to communicate with friends or family. With the help of the hacker community in Kiev, and then Paris, the man harnesses alternative virtual transmissions in an attempt to find his way home. Xam is told through an intimate, first-person frame and video collage to emphasize the increasing integration of human and technology. The story is inspired by the story of the filmmaker’s grandfather who in 1905, was captured by the Russian Empire, but escaped somewhere in Ukraine by jumping off a train.

Film Maker
Pugen, Geoffrey
Year
2020
Country
Canada
Length
9
Language
English, French, Russian
Category
Abstraction, Activism + Protest, art & artists, body, Canada, Capitalism + Economics, Culture, environment, Fashion, Geography, Identity, Jewish, media studies, music, Networks, Performance, Politics + Policy, Portraits, Youth
Genre
Animation, docufiction, experimental, narrative, short