Brian (Kelly Miller) drifts through life using a computer monitor as his window to the world outside. He hooks up with men online, remotes into his office, and FaceTimes with family, unable to connect meaningfully with the people on the other side of his screen.
After an online encounter with the charming Dom (Jose Joaquin Perez), Brian is faced with an unusual request: a virtual sleepover.
Brian succumbs to Dom’s proposition, and is transported (then spooked) by the sweet hints of intimacy that permeate the laptop screen.
Later, when Dom asks to meet him in person, Brian conjures an alternate reality; one in which he shatters his long-lived inhibitions to claim the warm touch of another human being. Dom persists until Brian replies: a small step for man – with momentous implications.
From writer-star Kelly Miller and Arthur Halpern, Touchscreen is a smart new short film about one man’s self-imposed isolation, and how the technologies and social platforms meant to connect us – to lovers, to family, to work – are misused to reinforce that isolation. The film was chosen as a selection at countless film festivals all over the globe.
Watch the trailer for Touchscreen below. The full 15-minute short is available now on Dekkoo.
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