The Squirrel

Welcome to the sterile, brave new world with its perfectly optimised everyday life! Here, forests, meadows, and mountains are nothing but a memory. Long gone, just like our furry animal friends. And that's why Pasi works as a synthetic-pet designer. Since he himself is lonely, he knows firsthand how comforting the four-legged robots with wide eyes and wagging tails can be. One day, however, he finds the last living squirrel on earth in a white garbage bag and takes it home – a serious violation of the law! Emilia, a civil servant tasked with monitoring compliance to the rigid hygiene regulations, soon becomes suspicious. But even in the tightly structured future, feelings cannot be optimised away. The animal becomes depressed, and Pasi falls in love with Emilia. Suddenly, life seeps into the stringent, symmetrically choreographed visual tableaux. Melancholy gives way to chaos. A bizarre dystopia with a doleful rodent as a therapist.