“Crazy enough”, “visually very exciting”, “compelling from the start”, “beautiful cinematography”: this is what members of the Quantum Shorts festival shortlisting panel had to say about films selected for screening. As a member of the panel, and as someone who has experienced the power of visual storytelling firsthand (Anyone Can Quantum, Quantum Is Calling), I was excited to see filmmakers and students from around the world try their hand at interpreting the weirdness of the quantum realm in fresh ways.

The ten shortlisted films were chosen from a total of 203 submissions received during the festival’s 2016 call for entries. Some of the finalists are dramatic, some funny, some abstract. Some are live-action film, some animation. Each is under five minutes long. Find the titles and synopses of the shortlisted films below.

Screenings of the films start February 23 with confirmed events in Waterloo (23 February) and Vancouver (23 February), Canada; Singapore (25-28 February); Glasgow, UK (17 March); and Brisbane, Australia (24 March).

More details can be found at shorts.quantumlah.org, where viewers can also watch the films online
and vote for their favorite to help decide a ‘People’s Choice’ prize. The website also hosts interviews with the filmmakers.

The Quantum Shorts festival is run by the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore with a constellation of prestigious partners including Scientific American magazine and the journal Nature. The festival’s media partners, scientific partners and screening partners span five countries. The Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech is a proud sponsor.

For making the shortlist, the filmmakers receive a $250 award, a one-year digital subscription to Scientific American and certificates.

The festival’s top prize of US $1500 and runner-up prize of US $1000 will now be decided by a panel of eminent judges. The additional People’s Choice prize of $500 will be decided by public vote on the shortlist, with voting open on the festival website until March 26th. Prizes will be announced by the end of March.

Quantum Shorts 2016: FINALISTS

Ampersand

What unites everything on Earth? That we are all ultimately composed of something that is both matter & wave

Submitted by Erin Shea, United States

Approaching Reality

Dancing cats, a watchful observer and a strange co-existence. It’s all you need to understand the essence of quantum mechanics

Submitted by Simone De Liberato, United Kingdom

Bolero

The coin is held fast, but is it heads or tails? As long as the fist remains closed, you are a winner – and a loser

Submitted by Ivan D’Antonio, Italy

Novae

What happens when a massive star reaches the end of its life? Something that goes way beyond the spectacular, according to this cosmic poem about the infinite beauty of a black hole’s birth

Submitted by Thomas Vanz, France

The Guardian

A quantum love triangle, where uncertainty is the only winner

Submitted by Chetan Kotabage, India

The Real Thing

Picking up a beverage shouldn’t be this hard. And it definitely shouldn’t take you through the multiverse…

Submitted by Adam Welch, United States

Together – Parallel Universe

It’s a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, girl is not as interested as boy hoped. So boy builds spaceship and travels through multi-dimensional reality to find the one universe where they can be together

Submitted by Michael Robertson, South Africa

Tom’s Breakfast

This is one of those days when Tom’s morning routine doesn’t go to plan – far from it, in fact. The only question is, can he be philosophical about it?

Submitted by Ben Garfield, United Kingdom

Triangulation

Only imagination can show us the hidden world inside of fundamental particles

Submitted by Vladimir Vlasenko, Ukraine

Whitecap

Dr. David Long has discovered how to turn matter into waveforms. So why shouldn’t he experiment with his own existence?

Submitted by Bernard Ong, United States