Underplayed Gems

Cruel Summer (2012)

Cruel Summer poster
Directed by
Kanye West
Genre
musical film
Country
United States
Runtime
25 min
Rating
4.3 of 10 from 3 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This short film follows a series of loosely connected vignettes set to music from the GOOD Music album. It features multiple perspectives and a non-linear narrative. The story focuses on themes of fame, excess, and personal struggle.

experimentalimmersiveenergeticfragmentedgrandiosedensekineticmusic-driven

What happens

Cruel Summer is a short film written and directed by American rapper Kanye West that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, and was shown out of competition. A custom pyramid-shaped screening pavilion was constructed for the film's debut, designed by conceptual firms Donda, OMA and 2x4. The theater featured seven screens – three in the front, one on the floor, one on the ceiling and one on both the right and left side of the space. Cruel Summer was shot using a specialized camera rig, which allowed the directors to capture multiple angles simultaneously. This style of filming and screening a movie has since become known as the "Seven Screen Experience". The film is inspired by the album of the same name by West's record label GOOD Music. It has been described as a "fusion of short film and art", with the Los Angeles Times raving Cruel Summer has a "thumping surround-sound quality that makes a 3-D Michael Bay effort feel like an iPad short." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.