Payload

This film is about the people who the future has left behind. A towering space elevator – a lift to carry passengers and cargo directly to orbit – serves as the backdrop for a place full of crime, corruption, and violence. The juxtaposition of such a glittering accomplishment of human engineering, with a lifestyle where bribery, self sacrifice, and fighting are necessary purely to survive is particularly poignant. And even while this dystopian hell is going on, all the while there's the tantalisingly close means of escape. A way of quite literally climbing to safety.

Payload pulls no punches. It depicts a grim and depressing reality which makes you look again at the world around us and question how likely a dark and seedy future like this really is. Excellent and powerful viewing.