In the poetic multi-player film Looks Like Dancing, our main character, O,  takes viewers and players on an enchanting journey, in which the world of matter takes on new meaning. Players are challenged in co-creation to capture the physical world with its forces of nature in film. With the central message that the complexity and beauty of our human existence come from the friction and collisions we experience every day.Through co-creation, we break the mantra of social media that mainly encourages individual content production. 

Looks Like Dancing is a poetic multi-player film that pays homage to friction and collision, told from a non-human perspective. The story is told by the main character, named O, a non-human intelligence, who marvels at the natural laws that prevail in the human material world, such as the influence of gravity. O (portrayed through a face, floating, painted with dots and lines and two loose hands, in front of a green undefined background) confidently and enthusiastically share their wonder and discoveries. 

The floating hands hold cards, which they scatter on the table. On these cards are short films captured by co-created project participants. Each film shows material objects subject to the force of gravity. 

Participants have previously filmed the movements of these objects (with their device’s camera): they fall, roll, bounce, float, and sink in water. Meanwhile, O gives a completely different interpretation of these movements and draws the conclusion that human life (on Earth?) must be very good. Why? Because they live in a state of constant friction, where interaction and dialogue take place. 

The film Looks Like Dancing takes the viewer/player on an enchanting journey, in which the world of matter takes on new meaning. It is a celebration of the miraculous interaction between objects and the forces acting on them, with the central message that the complexity and beauty of our human existence come from the friction and collisions we experience every day. 

Production details:

Written and directed by Luna Maurer & Roel Wouters
A co-production between Coops & Co and Studio Biarritz
Country: The Netherlands
Running time: variable
Status: in production, expected release in 2025

Mobile phone, co-creation, linear short fiction film