The Pyramid

Like Christ on the mountain being offered the world, our two characters look over a city-scape, symbol of Mammon, and discuss with dispassionate brutality the way to get on in life. Flash frames imply a brutal murder with the suit instructing balaclava man on the clean up. But who stands to gain, and who is in control? This 5 minute short is part political allegory about class, capitalism and status, part Hitchcockian twist plot. And perhaps, there's something of the religious parable as the lights of the city twinkle and the roads hum: 'the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. "All this I will give You," he said, "if You will fall down and worship me."' Remember that. Some neat and thoughtful touches in this piece which I viewed in January at the Horror-on-Sea festival in Southend.

A dark and brooding conversation that portrays our British obsessions with class, wealth, property and status. The leads vie for alpha male supremacy from two very differing sides of our atomised and alienating society. It is however brutality and a Darwinian act that establishes the hierarchy in this foreboding piece. A highlight of January's Horror on Sea Festival in Southend, Michael Fausti manages to create a sense claustrophobia while expansively reflecting on our Dystopian times.