Armageddon 2
Short Films, 12-Mar-2019
The internet in Cuba is very slow. Movies, television, and information are exchanged through a black market system known as “el paquete semanal.” In “Armageddon 2,” director Corey Hughes combines documentary, experimental and narrative elements as he follows one young man involved in the makeshift operation. The free-flowing yet disconnected exploration is part oblique character study, part experimental montage, threaded together with a whispered voiceover narration, which at times feels like a drugged-out promo for the underground network, “all the movies…all the television…I move it like water.” Distinctive images of the man hugging plants and doing push-ups in an abandoned playground, combined with Hughes’ signature use of oddly mechanical camera movements, coalesce into a fascinating depiction of a place and a flow of information, both digital and physical. For my money, Hughes is on the front lines of innovative experimental filmmaking and he’s quietly built up a vital short film resume, including 2016’s “ouchiemongo,” 2017’s “Caesars Palace,” and the upcoming, “My Expanded View.” “Armageddon 2,” was co-produced by Black Factory Cinema in a Werner Herzog Workshop, before premiering at the prestigious Locarno Film Festival. -KA. Directed, Shot, & Edited by Corey Hughes. Starring José Antoine Cernuda & Michel Brintori. Voice: Eduardo Bartolomé Equigren. Produced by Liliana Díaz Castillo, Estephania Bonnett Alonso, Lucía Dapena, Mao Daniel Cardoso.