Short Films, Science Fiction Edition

September 10, 2021 3:41 PM

DUST is a YouTube channel featuring short science fiction films. They post a new film every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Most are live action, some pure CGI, and there are a few animated films as well.

As you might expect, the quality of story (and the acting) is pretty variable across the many titles available, though the production values are fairly high across the board.

Some of my favorites (descriptions pulled straight from YouTube):

Final Offer A down-on-his-luck lawyer awakes in a doorless room to find he's been selected to negotiate on behalf of the human race.

Hyperlight Two elite astronauts wake up in the abyss of space; they return to their stranded ship and discover the surprising reason behind their mission's catastrophic failure.

Iteration 1 After waking up in a bizarre facility, Anna is forced to work together with her literal past lives in order to escape.

Wire Cutters A chance encounter proves fateful for 2 robots mining on a desolate planet.

King Ripple Four teens travel into a desolate and decrepit urban wasteland brought forth by the very being they wish to find, dead or alive.

posted by maxwelton (11 comments total)

The good largely outweighs the bad if you go poking around the archive (or at least I think so). For me, most of the clunkers were via stupid plot holes, though there is at least one male-gazy "most of our budget went towards hiring the underwear model of the director's dreams" where the lingering shots of the model are the raison d'être for that film.
posted by maxwelton at 3:48 PM on September 10, 2021 [2 favorites]

Dust is where the short, that eventually turned into the feature Prospect was initially released I think. Which I personally found to be one of the better screen-based science fiction entries in the last several years years or more.

It has a great, GREAT cast, and the story is pretty damn good....but the props and a really fantastic example of world-building are some of the best rivaled recently only by The Expanse.
posted by furnace.heart at 4:31 PM on September 10, 2021 [8 favorites]

I'll recommend the Latvian film Laura & Vineta for a charmingly potato-based first encounter.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 4:38 PM on September 10, 2021

l feel in love with DUST after I saw 'Lost Memories'.
Thanks for the link because on TV there more commercials then stories.
posted by clavdivs at 7:02 PM on September 10, 2021

They also worked on the short-lived sci-fi comedy series OTHER SPACE featuring the great Eugene Cordero.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 7:15 PM on September 10, 2021

A few days ago I was trying to remember a short film, turns out it was “Iteration 1”, thanks!
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:46 PM on September 10, 2021

The Narrow World is my favorite so far.
posted by y2karl at 9:07 PM on September 10, 2021

I love DUST. DUST is like pizza, it ranges from amazing to just mediocre and there’s more of it than I can ever consume in my lifetime.

I’ll recommend Timelike, which elevates a familiar trope through nightmare logic, and Time Trap, which is just bizarre and hilarious.
posted by ejs at 9:09 PM on September 10, 2021 [1 favorite]

My introduction to DUST was Floaters. What a great channel.
posted by davelog at 5:04 AM on September 11, 2021

DUST is a great channel. The thing I love is that most are sub-15 minutes: they're like little snacks, and they're generally pretty good quality.
posted by eclectist at 6:05 AM on September 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

The DUST podcast is amazing, all three seasons were great. I haven't watched any of these films but they look great. Something to dig into.
posted by googlebombed at 10:46 AM on September 11, 2021