Director Asif Kapadia is best known for his documentaries chronicling the lives of entertainment icons whose work left indelible marks on the worlds of music and sports. But his next feature looks like a nightmarish vision of a future that feels all too possible.
Though 2073, Kapadia’s new film, features plenty of archival news footage from our present, it’s also a sci-fi thriller set in a distant future where years of climate-related disasters and the rise of authoritarianism have transformed the world into a dystopian hellscape. To people like Ghost (Samantha Morton) — a woman barely surviving in an apocalyptic San Francisco by keeping off the grid — it’s all too clear how societies across the globe descended into chaos. But rather than fully dramatize those moments in history, 2073 buttresses its story with real-world newsreels and interviews with journalists about how the gradual erosion of democracy in the past paves the way for a terrifying new world order.
Along with shots of various political strongmen like Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Kim Jong Un, and Donald Trump, 2073’s trailer also emphasizes how Silicon Valley titans like Mark Zuckerberg play key roles in fostering the spread of fascism. And while the film doesn’t yet have a release date, as time-specific as 2073’s story seems to be, it probably won’t be long until it’s playing in theaters.