The Anachronism is a Steampunk science-fiction short set in the late nineteenth century.

During a summer day, Katie and Sebastian start an exploration of the woods near their home. They carry a scientific book with them, that they use to catalogue plants and insects. Their journey takes them to an isolated shore where they find an object impossible to catalogue: a giant mechanical squid, perhaps a submarine, perhaps an alien starship. As tide raises, they have to return home...

This short movie (15') is set during the Victorian Age, and the two children textbook represent the optimism of the science that claim to understand and catalogue everything; at the same time they are only children who still believe that the adults know everything. They meet an inexplicable object, an Anachronism, that shakes their self-confidence and let them (and us) understand that there are things that cannot be learned by reading books or listening to parents, but only by experience, and the experience itself may not have all the answers.

As said the director, Matthew Gordon Long: «My aim was to capture a child’s incomplete picture of the world, with all the sublime potential and scarring confusion that can come with it. I wanted to create a film that achieved the crystalline simplicity of a child’s storybook while carrying complex, genuine mysteries at its heart.»

Matthew Long already realized Sci-fi short movies, like The Great Retro-Chic Revival (2005), Trans Neptune (2006) and Drag Queen Cosmonaut (2007).

The Anachronism won seven Leo Awards: Best Short Drama, Best Screenwriting in a Short Drama, Best Overall Sound in a Short Drama, Best Musical Score in a Short Drama, Best Production Design in a Short Drama, and Best Costume Design in a Short Drama.

The complete movie can be found in the below link.

Links:

www.theanachronism.com