Strong (9:40)
Dust.tv; IMDb; Jean E. Lee; Shadow Council Productions; YouTube

This 2022 short film was presented by Dust in 2023.

A 16-year-old girl named Strong scavenges for parts to repair a run-down spaceship. She's desperate to take her sick mother to a planet called Superterra, but the people of Superterra have just voted to close the wormhole that leads from a dystopian Earth to their affluent world. So it's a race against time in a barely functional ship. The film is an obvious allegory for the plight of refugees in our own time. I think it's a good story, but the ending is unclear. All I know is I hope Strong and her mother make it through. And I hope people here and now become more empathetic.