BEING HUMAN | Omeleto

Full synopsis

An A.I. assistant comes to life. Alex and Yoli are a couple who share a home together, using a "Moogi" device to help them to assist in their lives. But one day, their Moogi turns into a human being. Moogi now wants to be called Wilde, and Wilde want to understand what it means to be human. But as he awkwardly navigates emotions and relationships, he quietly clashes with Alex and Yoli, resetting the dynamic between owners and devices and pushing more than a few buttons in the process. Directed and written by Andre Mancebo Heizer and Sergio Diaz-Silverio, this wry sci-fi dramedy takes a droll and deadpan perspective on the story of an A.I. voice assistant device that becomes a human being. Many people can relate to shouting in frustration at an unresponsive or clueless A.I. voice assistant like Alexa or Siri. This short uses that dynamic as a jumping-off point to probe our relationship to technology, how we shape it and how it may shape us in the future. Shot in plainspoken black-and-white, the film's tone and style seem to reference offbeat cinematic influences like the French New Wave or Jim Jarmusch, which also shape the film's unique tone. We open on Alex trying to get his virtual voice assistant to turn off the lights. It doesn't respond, and Alex begins yelling at it. The next morning, he and Yoli wake up to discover a naked man in their home, lying like a plank on the floor. It's a funny, chaotic scene, introducing us to Moogi, who has turned into a human being and now wants to be called Wilde. The storytelling shifts to Wilde's perspective, charting his travails as he tries to get used to being human, get his owners to call him by his new name and generally feel like he belongs. Actor Sergio Diaz-Silverio plays Moogi/Wilde as detached but observant, with a growing emotional reactivity. Through Wilde's eyes, we see human beings as complex, strange yet sometimes wondrous, allowing the storytelling to turn lyrical and charming in parts. But we also see that even though Wilde is a human now, the dynamic of ownership is still persists, something that increasingly bothers Wilde as he's ordered around without much consideration. He's still treated as subservient to his owners, played by actors Andre Mancebo Heizer and Karen Orellana with a slyly funny mix of self-absorption, amusement and dismissiveness. But as the humans refuse to adapt to Wilde's new humanity, Wilde grows discontented -- until he hits upon a solution to his loneliness and alienation. It ends BEING HUMAN on a beautifully absurdist, funny note, though not without a sense of questioning. Though this clever, subversive film takes a left-of-center approach to exploring our relationship to tech, it still provokes questions about our seemingly natural assumption that we own it, and it serves us. Yet we're also quickly approaching the possibility that it may evolve in ways that evade that sense of control. What will it have learned about and from us, and who will have the upper hand? Though it's handled with a laidback trickster's touch, the film leaves us with these questions, shadowed with a final, uneasy laugh. BEING HUMAN. Courtesy of Andre Mancebo Heizer and Sergio Diaz-Silverio at https://instagram.com/foy.films.