Synopsis

Beca pulls her drowning partner Isaac from a murky pond and makes a futile attempt to revive him. After giving up, she suddenly awakens inside a strange home where she’s subjected to repeated questioning as part of an experiment, conducted by reclusive Atlas Inc CEO David Hinton. David tests the limits of her comprehension, emotion and sorrow. Induced by extreme grief Beca reaches breaking point.

Directors statement

Loop is an artistic exploration of a simple hypothesis: emotion cannot be programmed, it must be felt and experienced to be real.

I started exploring this concept while observing my young son discover and display new emotions through his own direct experience and contact with others. He was learning to process the feelings of anger, joy, disappointment, sadness, and I found this progression of maturity fascinating and insightful. I started to question whether replicating an emotive incident could result in a similar reaction every time and, if so, could we program a machine to feel?

Ultimately Loop is a film of contrasts. An android struggling to process and understand intense new emotions, and an artist on the edge of madness striving for perfection. The treatment of the film enhances this contrast with an artfulness that opposes the mechanical, visceral nature of the subject matter.