A Missed Call

A man is standing in a desolate space in some other universe, far away from here. He calls home and leaves a voice message: “Where I am now, there’s nothing.” As he talks about his life, we see the places he mentions, the beaches and bars he goes to.

Although his world has some references to ours, it lacks human connection. “Here, people don’t lie down on the ground under a tree,” he says, while old home videos show people doing just that. The man has built a life for himself here, and there’s no turning back. But he longs for home, for what now only seems to exist in his memories. A Missed Call is a surreal and intriguing journey that makes you wonder about connection, about regret and loneliness.

In this hybrid film, Francesco Manzato creatively combines the world of video games with film. He uses 8mm footage belonging to his grandfather, whom he never met. By creating an alternate universe where he lives on, the filmmaker tries to reconcile the gaps of the past with pieces of an imagined future, attempting to create a dialogue with the grandfather he wishes he’d known.