Fiction often paints the apocalypse as a swift and thunderous snap of
Mother Nature’s fingers— there’s before, and there’s after. The reality is
closer to a pressure cooker; a slow burn, and one that we can all see
coming. It’s a well-documented descent that we incessantly track through
clickbait headlines and online videos until one day, before too long, it’s
right in front of us.

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“Conscripted” is a contemporary reflection on what it feels like to grow up
knowing nothing but the fall, drifting through the air without a parachute while finding ways to distract yourself from the fact that the houses on the ground is getting bigger and bigger with every passing second.

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This short film is about helplessness. It’s about the unprecedented lack of control and the desperation many people feel today seeking a lifeline. Our main character, Gil, a young high school graduate and newly conscripted U.S. soldier, faces the brutality of war equipped with nothing but talk therapy, a Xanax, and breathing exercises to keep him sane: a sailor trying his best to bail the water out of his sinking ship with a colander.