Abe (8:29)
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This 2013 short film was presented by Dust in 2017 and by Alter in 2018; re-released by Dust in 2023.

A woman awakens to find herself strapped down on an operating table in an isolated room somewhere, her mouth taped shut. Soon a robot appears and begins sadly soliloquizing about how he can't help loving people, and needs to "fix" anyone who doesn't love him back. Of course, he doesn't realize the people he tries to fix aren't really broken, and I'm not even sure he understands that his own actions break (or rather, kill) them. It's definitely creepy and horrifying, and I'd say it's an interesting metaphor for human beings who are obsessed with others to a dangerous degree, and end up hurting or killing them. But the fact that it's a robot, not even a particularly scary-looking robot, doing the... operating... gives the horror an almost sterile feeling, I'd say. Or perhaps I should say a "mechanical" feeling. And that's part of what makes the film interesting.