On Falling (in-person & online)

Joana Santos, Inês Vaz, Piotr Sikora

Working round the clock at a vast fulfilment centre in Edinburgh, Portuguese warehouse picker Aurora (Portuguese screen star Joana Santos) is a slave to the algorithm. Trapped between the confines of her workplace and the solitude of her flatshare, she is desperate to build a rich and meaningful life, but enjoys only the briefest of exchanges with her co-workers and flatmates.

Previously a filmmaker of shorts including the BAFTA Scotland-nominated Red Hill and 2020 Venice selection The Shift, Carreira’s highly impressive feature debut is a powerful and assured meditation on social isolation and alienation. Set against a landscape dominated by an anonymising gig economy and the wider social and technological forces that often seem designed to keep us apart, On Falling explores the struggle to find real connection.