The Device

I suspect that this short was made on a budget approaching zero but it still doesn’t detract from the fact that for me it is one of the more satisfying science fiction shorts that I have seen over the last year.  A young, rather nerdy man discovers a device which instantly transports him to various places.

As it dawns on him how the device works he begins to make plans to visit all those places he has never been able to get to before. Yet. Oh yes, there’s always a yet with this kind of story. The Device has a very satisfactory twist in its tale.

Directed by Claude Lee Sadik a freelance cinematographer and featuring Leo Mates as the traveler, The Device is perhaps at least partly inspired by Sadik’s own life. He is a Franco-Brazilian born in Belgium who moved to Africa where he lived for 7 years (4 years in Cameroon and 3 years in Rwanda). Since then he moved back to Belgium, then to France and is now based in Manchester in the UK. He must have wished for a similar device during some of his travels!

What I particularly like about The Device is how it just gets on with the story and at under four minutes you don't feel that your time has been spent listening to techno jargon about how the device might work and whence it comes.  Sadik lets you draw your own conclusions tells the story effectively in real time.