(courtesy YouTube (c) DUST)
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Webcam follows James Mann, a distraught man who thinks himself alone amidst the aftermath of our world’s downfall in the not-so-distant future. He lives a solitary life within a sealed bunker, taking refuge from the ravages of a world run amok. James’ only companion is a small, artificially intelligent camera drone named WebCam, ironically without purpose in a world with no one left alive with whom to communicate. Forlorn and losing sight of his reason to continue living, James prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice…until at the last second, WebCam receives a signal for an incoming transmission. There’s somebody else out there…or is there? (courtesy YouTube)
When the world has ended, and you’re the last person alive on Earth, surrounded by the flooded remains of a long-ago London, it’s understandable that you might be at the end of your ability to cope.
As Webcam, from DUST YouTube channel and co-written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Nick Delgado, aka Nicolás Delgado de la Cámara, opens, James Mann (Drew van Acker, Pretty little Liars) is exhausted by keeping the light of humanity on and decides to end it all.
It’s a grim and terrible moment, and while Mann’s A.I. drone bestie sounds the alarm, the last man on Earth’s response is simply to shout at, tears streaming down his face, “You’re just a machine, you don’t understand.”
It seems like all hope is well and truly lost until a transmission comes in that might indicate Mann is not alone but is he in a position to hear it?
To say much more will be to give the game away completely, but suffice to say, Webcam shines an intensely intimate and moving light on what surviving the end of the world might feel like and how hope might feel more illusory than actual even when it’s standing right in front of you.