All Dogs Go to Heaven: Dystopian Sci-Fi About A Very Convenient Chip

Sebastian C. Santisteban’s All Dogs Go to Heaven, written by Gian Bonacchi, Neal Ludevig, Sergio Sanchez, and Daniel Moreno Skurve, tells the story of a dystopian, totally distant future with no connection to our own world whatsoever, ruled by the powers of a chip called Unneurolink. Totally different, completely unconnected, zero allusions. 

Much of the 9-minute plot is shared between F1 (Cindy Claes), a dutiful scientist of the new world order (Humanity 2.0, they call it), and Grace (Monika Valkunaite), an ungraciously resistant recipient of the chip. Curiously abusive of human rights while claiming to bring about a revolution in peace and productivity (those two things are so stubbornly conjoined, you can no longer have the former without full expectation of the latter; surely a coincidence in this dystopian fantasy narrative), F1 continues her injections and some form of shocks treatment on the orders of her overlords (represented and voiced by Neal Ludevig) while Grace carries on her snark with a side of sincerity with equal gusto. Before long, F1 finds her own humanity (1.0) being shaken loose from its dusty trenches at the same time that the overlords scale up their scrutiny on the goings-on at the lab. 

One could use a bit of dust in this dystopia with no link to a familiar natural world. The film sets the story within F1’s lab—all sterile white and studio dark. If she spent long enough in there, Grace would not need any of the chemical abuse to lose her grip on sanity. Perhaps it is that disorienting environment that makes both characters feel hazy around the edges, like they are not quite solidified in their personhood. Claes and Valkunaite make the best of it. 

All Dogs Go to Heaven comes with ideas as lofty as they are pertinent. Interestingly, the best of the film is the opening sequence of testimonials. As anonymous client after anonymous client attest to the convenience of a life without history, memory, and feeling in an incisively edited sequence, the anonymity, the blandly cheerful accounts, and the equally optimistic Unneurolink logo are intolerably unsettling. But it does make you wonder whether these perfectly satisfied people chose their new life or were coerced into it. In our world, there is only a thin, tenuous thread distinguishing the two. You can only wonder about the one within the film.

Watch All Dogs Go To Heaven Short Film Trailer