Doomscrolling
Experimental
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Short Films, 28-Aug-2025
A young man talks himself through a panic attack. In “Doomscrolling,” Santi MacLean layers multimedia documents and data moshes on top of a vulnerable outcry. With bulging eyes and spaghetti-like green hair, the young man speaks in the form of a 3D-animated figure. In a high pitch voice, the character extrapolates on recent feelings of self-hatred and general aimlessness, due to financial pressures and up-keeping physical and intellectual standards while encountering romantic hook-ups. Micro-aggressions stretch the narrator’s mental bandwidth into oblivion and his cryptic self-recorded videos, along with other digital images, disintegrate into the next. While the outside world and its tactile elements offer moments of calmness, only so much can heal until the state of reality hits yet again. MacLean’s film moves quickly but packs a final punch, capturing the overwhelming influx of textures and feelings siphoned into a young person’s feed, and mind, today. -JM. Director/Writer: Santi MacLean, Editor/Animator: Joe Zappulla, Producer: Nate Gibson, Music: Santi MacLean.
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