Writer-director Christian Schilling headed a team of commercial film students from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany, to make this branded spec short for Duracell. Schilling is an alum of SHOOT’s 2018 New Directors Showcase.
Titled Revived, this piece introduces us to Carl who was born with a cord on his back, on which you have to tug, serving to wind him up like a music box. As a young soldier he awakes on a rubber boat in the middle of a rapid river. Suddenly they are attacked and his friend Henry floats lifeless in the water. A race against time begins, while fragments of his childhood shoot through his mind.
In the end for our main character with his wind-up cord, the power of friendship and the power of the battery is the salvation. The power of friendship charges the main character like a Duracell battery.
The film–which went toward earning diplomas for its creators–was made over the past couple of years with two shooting blocks–during mid-2019 and then at the end of that year. Approximately 80 crew members and just over 100 extras were involved in the making of the film. Just a few weeks ago, visual effects were wrapped on the project and it was released.
