Travel deep into the fascinating darkness of space thanks to this intergalactic short film! R.I.S.E Pathfinder is an incredibly touching animated film made by a group of students from the Georges Méliès School in France. In it, the five budding film-makers gently and thoughtfully explore the era of robotics and artificial intelligence. We meet an adorable little robot who is very attached to its creator. The story is set in the 1970s, a time of great excitement about androids. A scientist invents a robot designed to to calculate spatial distances, particularly the mysterious interval between Earth and the end of the universe. Alone in the vastness of the galaxy, the little robot sets off to accomplish his mission before returning home.
The story of R.I.S.E Pathfinder plays with scientific concepts and themes, such as space-time or the mysteries and limits of the universe. Through the beauty and precision of the images, young viewers can escape into the galaxy and are invited to imagine all the riches within and to confront its sheer immensity. The short film has no dialogue yet succeeds in conveying a wide range of emotions solely through its drawings and melody.
But this is more than a space adventure. It is also a work of great intelligence. Without revealing the final scene, we can say that this film offers plenty of food for thought about the future, the relationship between humans and machines, and scientific progress. Moreover, viewers quickly grow very fond of this robot who experiences very human-like feelings and emotions. This character, with its appearance and personality, has some qualities in common with WALL-E, the hero of the eponymous movie by Pixar. The final scene is heartbreakingly poetic, overwhelming, yet cleverly concludes this journey into the past—or should we say, into the future...
