Ten films bring quantum inspiration to international festival shortlist

The Quantum Shorts film festival organised by the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) and international partners has announced its finalists. The shortlisted films are “painfully touching”, “slightly absurd” and “brilliantly unexpected”. The shortlisting judges, including CQT's Dagomir Kaszlikowski, Jenny Hogan and Yvonne Gao, picked the ten finalists and commended the diversity of entries.

You can watch the shortlisted films here: https://shorts.quantumlah.org/films#2020

The shortlist was chosen from 224 films received from 52 different countries during the festival’s call for entries in 2020. The task for filmmakers was to tell a quantum story in no more than five minutes of film. Filmmakers tackled the challenge in many thought-provoking ways.

“There was such a variety of entries, each with their own unique twist on quantum, it was a joy to watch them all,” said shortlisting judge Ruth Hardy at the UK Quantum Communications Hub.

The finalists are made in styles including live action, puppeteering and animation, across a range of genres. You can watch a comedic take on quantum superposition, immerse yourself in a suspenseful game of hide-and-seek, and solve a crime with quantum clues.

Among these creative takes on quantum physics, many of the films tell a human story. Joshua Slater at QuTech said, “I loved watching the films that explored the human side; how people act in a world where the weirdness of quantum physics is manifest around us,” he said. “Whether it is children, or beguiling young adults, or a future society, I can feel the imagination of those films opening up my own.”

Want to open up your imagination, too? Now you can judge the films for yourselves. We invite you to watch the Quantum Shorts finalists and vote for your favourite. There is an online public vote to decide the People’s Choice Prize open until 28 February.

Meanwhile, our eminent judges will decide the festival’s First Prize and Runner Up to be announced in March. This chance at even greater honours comes on top of the prizes the finalists have already won. For making the shortlist, the ten finalists from Australia, the Czech Republic, Chile, India, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States have won a $250 prize and a one-year digital subscription to Scientific American.

Congratulations to the finalists! You can watch the trailer first, and then enjoy the films one by one. You can also read interviews with the films’ creators on the Quantum Shorts website for behind the scenes stories.

At shorts.quantumlah.org, you can also look out for news of upcoming events. We will be holding online panels and some live screenings. Our first live screening is happening at the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, in February. Visit the events page on the Quantum Shorts website for more details and links to register.