Past Futures: Dystopias, Utopias and Back to Futurism on Screen – Broadsheet

Science-fiction has been trying to predict the future for decades, and for one week the Capitol Theatre is screening some of cinema's best efforts.

The elite class living high above the ground, AI virtual assistants (that fall in love), Soylent Green made of people from the bizarre to the innocuous, films have long depicted possibilities for the future.

As part of Melbourne Design Week, the Capitol Theatre is screening ten visionary sci-fi flicks that prophesied what lies ahead socially, politically, technologically, environmentally and existentially.

It opens with silent film Metropolis from auteur Fritz Lang, who explores the divide between social classes through space. The program includes documentary Bombay Beach, a "dreamlike poem" of three personal stories; Joaquin Phoenix vehicle Her, where he falls in love with a Scarlett Johansson-voiced sentient AI; Francois Truffaut's dystopian Fahrenheit 451; and procedural horror Soylent Green. The latter will be preceded by a panel discussion speculating on the future of food and farming in the next 60 years.

Throughout the program, the Capitol is also hosting free exhibitions, talks, activations and performances around ideas of climate and community.

More information here.

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Past Futures: Dystopias, Utopias and Back to Futurism on Screen - Broadsheet