Koimoi Recommends Swipe: A Pakistani Short Film That Talks About Shattering Dystopia & How It Isnât Too Far From Now
Conceptualised by Arafat Mazhar, Swipe is a 14-minute look at a possible future that holds the darkest of the phases for humans.
Koimoi Recommends Arafat Manzharâs Swipe ( Photo Credit â Still )
Koimoi Recommends Swipe: 2 decades ago, the thought of dystopia consisted of a world full of crime and riots. But switch to some odd twenty years later and add the rise of technology to that and the increasing usage of it too. The trigger lies in the hands of millions who own a phone and imagine if your life is dependent on their âswipeâ. Sounds bizarre and frightening right? On Koimoi Recommends today, I recommend you the Pakistani short film created for over a year by 20 highly able artist under Puffball Studioâs umbrella. It is an alarm to the dystopia we all are heading towards and what it looks like.
With films like Swipe, Shehr e Tabassum, Pakistan s Puffball Studio depicts dystopias that feel all too real An app that mirrors mob justice. A dystopia where smiling is the only expression allowed. Pakistan s Puffball Studio and its founder Arafat Mazhar skewer the mechanisms of intolerance and hate through their films. Manik Sharma December 15, 2020 10:58:16 IST Still from Puffball Studio s Swipe
In the animated short film
Shehr e Tabassum, the ‘Supreme Leader’ of a dystopian Pakistan in 2071 passes a law declaring all expressions other than smiling a crime. It’s the state’s way of manufacturing both consent and a flimsy yet persuasive image of a happy civilisation. People who refuse are deemed as traitors. The drugged, exclusionary vision of the future that the short film offers is eerily echoed by the present of many countries around the world