_{Metabolism by Misho Antadze}

On a farm somewhere in The Netherlands cows get milked by robots. Not in the old-fashioned automated sense whereby the milk extractor is placed on the cow’s udders manually. This robot uses laser technology to locate and attach, and then extract. In fact, on this farm there seems to be no humans at all. The muck on the floor of the cowshed is cleaned up by a roving vacuum cleaner, and if a cow needs an itch attended to, it leans against an automated gyroscratcher that offers instant relief.

Meanwhile in a floating Chinese restaurant close to Amsterdam’s Central Station, a robot delivers food to your table. It is polite, with a smiley face, and says ‘please’ and ‘excuse me,’ although on occasion it can be a bit grumpy. “Please get out of the way,’ it says at one point, and pulls a severe face.

Elsewhere a mechanic working from home fixes a glitch in a robotic arm, enabling it to pick up a screwdriver.

These are the core scenes in Misho Antadze’s documentary Metabolism, selected for Sheffield DocFest Short Film Competition, which he describes as “a brief document about the latest stage of consumption-oriented industrialization.”

Antadze got a hint of an idea for his film when he saw the robotic waiter in action. “It was really funny because on one hand it was very gimmicky. I thought it's just there to attract customers and it seemed a bit more clumsy than functional. But when I saw it more, I realized that it is a lot more functional as well,” he says, adding of the anthropomorphic feeling that it engendered, “but just looking at it was kind of funny and a bit sad, almost like watching a silent comedy with these clumsy movements.”

What finally determined the director to take on this subject for a film was a friend telling him how she was part of a delegation who observed a completely ‘robotized’ Dutch farm “The animals are fed by a robot and cleaned by a robot, and the shit is also cleaned by a robot,” Antadze confirms.

So he got onto Amsterdam-based Revolver Film who immediately assigned an intern producer (Adela Bottcher) to organize and oversee a shoot. “She just brilliantly managed to get all these locations and everything. It's basically three locations in the film and three days of shooting, that was it.” And next to no budget, Antadze adds.

The film is totally non-judgmental. Some audience members may find the process of robotization anti-human, while others may think of it is as necessary and labour-saving tool. Whatever Antadze thinks, he keeps it to himself. “The observational documentary work that I make, it's mostly because I'm curious. I want to see these things, so making these films is a way of taking a look for myself and obviously to bring the audience with me as well. Obviously I have my ideas and obviously I  come to some of my own conclusions, but I like to think through looking, if that doesn't sound too pretentious,” he laughs.

Why the title of Metabolism? Antadze reminds me that at the core of the film are the themes of consumption and digestion. “Also, the word has this really grave sound to it, a bit like ‘metal.’ But it’s mostly because it's interesting to think how much of our digestion and living processes are linked to technology these days. And how we are also being digested as well. Technology has become so dominant in our lives, but it's not a one-way dependency. It has become this symbiotic relationship where both us and technology have become dependent on each other.”

There is a strong technological undertow to Antadze’s next documentary. With a working title of The Listeners, and produced by Manon Bovenkerk of near/by film (who has sourced development finance from the Netherlands Film Fund), the feature doc examines ordinary folk who use listening devices to detect signs of illicit nuclear testing across the planet.

“They're constantly waiting for signs of nuclear explosions, but they also record things like whale song and icebergs breaking up and all these other sounds of the Earth,” says Antadze. “What really fascinates me besides the technology is that these are everyday people. One of them runs the supermarket. Another one might be working in a school.  But they might just be preventing the Apocalypse.”

Metabolism is produced by Revolver Amsterdam.
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