Something is wrong in Brazilian filmmaker Davi Pretto’s fourth feature, Future Future, which world premieres in the Proxima Competition program of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Wednesday, July 9. The title is a nod to the setting: a rainy near-future Brazil where AI advances coincide with a new neurological syndrome.
“A 40-year-old amnesic man named K is taken in by a 60-year-old lonely clickworker on the poor side of a rainy Brazilian city,” reads a synopsis for the movie. “After using an addictive AI device in a course for people with the strange [neurological] syndrome, K embarks on a tragic and absurd journey to find where he truly belongs.” AI threats, social inequality, and cognitive disruption are dissected through this sci-fi lens.
Described as “an unconventional political lo-fi sci-fi shot in guerrilla style for 16 days” on a tiny budget, the independent Brazilian production survived the country’s worst flood in over 80 years, which displaced half a million people and put cities underwater for almost two months. As such, the dystopian drama survived a real-life drama.
“After the flood destroyed our locations, Davi radically incorporated AI imagery that he created himself, both as a dystopian element previously imagined for the story and as an ironic and provocative solution to finish the film, exploring the poetic potential in the stupidity and absurdity of AI images, a cinematic and philosophical debate that the film addresses,” says producer Paola Wink.
Pretto’s previous features were Castanha (2014), Rifle (2017), and Continent (2024). “Influenced by the exponential growth of luxury private neighborhoods that emulate foreign countries for the privileged few in the city I live, Porto Alegre, I wrote this film thinking about how Brazilian division and inequality persist, both as urban geography and as social concept – selling this ‘other country’ as an attainable consumer desire,” the filmmaker explains.
“In this context, artificial intelligence doubles as the virtual false image of an emulated city and as a tool that promises that these private spaces for the elite will function without the need for servants, finally separating these enclaves from the surrounding city,” Pretto says. “The story reflects on the cognitive and political dangers of advances in artificial intelligence, a technology that has changed the world of work, social relations, and altered our perception of what is real and what is not.”
THR can exclusively reveal a first teaser for Future Future below, which features recurring red and recurring lines. “Try to visualize it,” a voice is heard saying repeatedly, for example. So, take a look into the Future Future, but remember: “Something is wrong.”
English (US) ·