In a sterile world of colorless pipes with a deeply questionable origin, much to to the identity of the corporation that owns them, Mush operates as the be-all and end-all of people's dietary supplies. Within the corporation exist strict hierarchies of power, also determining which color of Mush is made available to its employees for their lacklustre meals. The story truly begins when a level one employee, Marcus is promoted to level seven under the leadership of a seemingly underage manager. While navigating the power structures of his new position, he stumbles across another strange, previously unencountered object in his own backyard - a tomato. Unsure of what the item truly is, describing it as a flower of sorts hanging from the plant, clearly having only been familiar with mush as a meal, his world gets a welcome surprise of tasting a fruit for the first time, and yet, the structures he moves and functions within might not be as welcoming of it. The narrative of the film invokes all of these underpinnings by satirising the closely regulated workplace hierarchies, the inner functionings of a big corporation, young upstarts given crucial professional positions and of course, the complete control of a truth narrative by a handful custodians of power.

Mush | Short Film Nominee

Two masked people sit across a table. The ensuing conversation reveals them to be gods, perhaps Zeus and Hera, regretting a fate where they are allowed only a single night of union every hundred years. A mention of a brother who betrayed them invokes Hades for the viewer, as his hounds further conjure an image of Hell. The film strives to be a philosophical engagement with ideas of existence, humanity, creation of the world as well as the separation of the lovers. They ponder over the fate of humans and maybe even finally fulfilling their age-old desire of free will. Parallel to this is the horizon of expectation that the title of the film has established in the viewer's mind right from the beginning. The rest of the narrative simply serves to reveal whether or not it would come in the manner in which we expect it. Will the two gods part at the end of the night to again be separated for a century or would humankind be sacrificed, a set of people devolving into a world of chaos anyway without any help from the gods, so that the two can remain together? The question has already been set in motion by the film's opening visual, and it is only in its conclusion that the answer lies.

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