Remote New World

When you go on your daily walk, please take your device with you to assist with contact tracing. We are all in this together.

– Government announcer (Kathleen Winter)

We wanted to make a short science fiction film while in lockdown but realised we're already living in the sci-fi future — this is it, with a huge reliance on technology to connect us with other people and the outside world. I feel very suspicious of that reliance and this was a fun way to vent that frustration.

– Co-Director Kathleen Winter

I had been listening to the official government update messages played on RNZ in the first few weeks of lockdown, and found them very dystopian and interesting to analyse in terms of the language and key messages. Some of the government announcements in the film are word for word what was played on RNZ. We only pushed them a little further by introducing contact tracing — which wasn't being mentioned at that point...

– Co-Director Emma Cullen