In a just-barely-future of AI zoo optimization and VR dating apps, sensible Estonian teen Mia is still figuring out her future when her American friend Grete comes to visit for a summer at the lake and things take a turn for the weird. Drawn along by the desire to play it cool with her older friend, she's pulled towards not exactly drugs but an experimental mindfulness headset that might probe even more mind-altering. But why are two officers from Interpol in town to track it, and what does it have to do with the benevolent robotic chicken at the Tallinn Zoo?
Following up from surreal prior features Crumbs and Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, director Miguel Llansó here constructs a slightly more traditional narrative with meatier themes, but without giving up his inventiveness. Ultimately it's tethered by a strong lead performance that keeps the wildest turns of the plot from ever feeling unrelateable. With a score from pioneering electronic composer Laurie Spiegel.
Infinite summer is a techno-psychedelic coming of age story that draws as much from the teen summer canon as it does from classic sci-fi mind-benders in order to construct a very contemporary interrogation of transhumanism, the unchecked global tech economy, and the desire to find one's place in the universe.
Preceded by an even more psychedelic plot to reach our lost companion animals beyond the veil:
