A Living Dog

Lore & Background

The film is set in a dystopia where a war between humans and combat drones has made human communication impossible, as machines have learned to respond to human voice frequencies. The story follows Tomasz, a deserter who flees battle in a stolen vehicle into the Scandinavian forests. There he meets Lilja, a Russian resistance fighter and the last survivor of her combat group, who pursues a suicidal plan against the machines, inadvertently drawing them onto Tomasz's trail.

Reader's Guide

A Living Dog was shot in Lapland during midnight sun time in 2016, with additional night shoots later added in North Rhine-Westphalia. The film was shown at international film festivals from 2019 to 2021, receiving 11 awards and 8 nominations. Its German premiere was at the Berlin SciFi Film Festival in 2019, and it was also shown at the Max Ophüls Prize 2020 and the Snowdance Independent Film Festival 2020. Reviews were mostly positive in England, where The Guardian described it as 'atmospheric' with 'anime-esque aplomb' but noted a 'muddy narrative'. The New York Times called it a 'solid debut'.

Did You Know?

• The film contains only two spoken sentences, one in English and one in Russian.
• The film is known in the UK as A New World Order.
• It won Best Science Fiction Film at multiple festivals.