“Future Future”, an interview with director Davi Pretto

A conversation with Brazilian director Davi Pretto about his fourth feature, “Future Future“, a visually arresting and deeply affecting dystopian film, selected in the Proxima Competition section of the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where the past is forgotten, and the future eerily similar to the present – as a title card reveals in the beginning of the film, it was shot in Porto Alegre during the cataclysmic floods of 2024.

In the film, set in a near future, markedly divided into two distinct acts set in two opposite, adjacent spaces filmed and crafted in completely different ways – between which the mind of the protagonist, K., alternates throughout the movie –, that of the poor and that of the rich, various tragedies have already happened: a virus making it impossible to form mental images and therefore to retain memories, even that of one’s own name, virus which made necessary the use of AI machines to do ‘all the work’ in lieu of the humans, but also a ‘Split’ which has isolated the hungry and poor majority experiencing the critical state of the world every day from the wealthy part of the population dwelling in the supernatural redness of cold, modern flats floating accross the tops of cities contemplating the coming apocalypse, to paraphrase the poet.

On the intentions behind the project

‘We wanted to navigate through different crises that I believe we are living, these political, urbanistic, technological crises that, in some way, for me, are related. I think it’s impossible to talk about the technological crisis without talking about climate change… What I wanted to do is to put together some sort of a meditation about all these things, make the audience dive into some sort of bubble, put the audience into some sort of bubble and make them experience these things, and not only talk… well, not talk, because I don’t think the film is trying to give answers about these issues: we’re just trying to ruminate about these things.’

On the presence of AI in the film

‘AI is something we address in the film, but I decided to use AI images, I wanted to, because I think it was important not only to put the audience in front of these images, but also to give them time to really look at them, proper time – because when you watch these images online, they are quite fast. I really wanted to make something that would give the audience a space [to consider] a horror, a nightmare.’

On the striking resemblance between the reality in “Future Future” and the present

‘The title is a bit like a joke: it promises a really futuristic film, but at the end of the day, the first image that we see is the most common place in Brazil, a school, and then there is a street, and there is no element that indicates a near-future film. I think that was the goal: to really play with the audience’s expectations.‘

Plot