The Machine: Top Prize Winner at the Robot Film Festival

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6974132[/vimeo]

Rob Shaw’s dark ani­mat­ed short The Machine was vot­ed Best Film at last week’s Robot Film Fes­ti­val in New York City.  The movie starts on what looks like a stan­dard boy-makes-machine, machine-runs-amok, boy-kills-machine tra­jec­to­ry, but veers nice­ly off-course and ends on a note much more Sartre than Ter­mi­na­tor. (Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca fans will see the twist com­ing from a mile away).

The Machine seems like a good fit for the new fes­ti­val, which founder and Carnegie Mel­lon roboti­cist Heather Knight hopes will fuel inno­va­tion and help improve robots’ image in a post-Cylon world. For more back­sto­ry, check out edi­tor and RFF judge Celeste Biev­er’s fas­ci­nat­ing wrap-up at the New Sci­en­tist.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Blinky™: A Touch­ing Short Film About A Killer Robot

Robot Con­ducts The Detroit Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.