Welcome to the age of cosmic radiation! In 2021 the sun fell to its lowest point of activity since the birth of science. Its magnetic waves that once shielded Earth dramatically weakened. During this solar lull powerful intergalactic cosmic rays penetrated our atmosphere. Originating eons ago from the explosive remnants of dead stars, these silent, invisible, and highly charged particles were only noticed in their effect — in what they did to our bodies, to the technologies we thought we could rely upon.

Compiling stories from the recent past of interaction with cosmic radiation at ever descending altitudes, The Phantom Menace is a techno driven stroboscopic climate fiction film written in conversation with Amazon warehouse workers. Initially inspired by the plans of the US government to install their fragile predictive supercomputers deep underground to protect them from these upcoming ancient alien invaders, the film uses once costly low-resolution scientific visualizations produced on these supercomputers to speculate on the role of labor in the subterranean near future. Planes crashing, computers malfunctioning, and elections going haywire — these were just the prequel to the future.

Symen and Sam try to pass their time in the monotony of a post-industrial suburb. They seem to linger in a kind of perpetual twilight that is answered by the invisible presence of ‘Hardcore’. While gaming and burning daylight, they end up searching for the core of their desires.

Dutch spoken, English subtitles