Imagine assembly the individual you need to spend your life with—however you reside in a neighborhood the place companions are forcibly switched by way of a lottery frequently, and no quantity of real love makes any distinction. That’s the premise of Heartless, an Icelandic sci-fi brief directed by Haukur Björgvinsson, first noticed on Short of the Week.

Ok, technically there may be an out—{couples} who want to keep collectively can take a look at their relationships by “selfishly” remaining inside that egg-shaped vessel for seven lengthy years. What occurs in there? From what we will inform, nothing good.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Young couple Anna and Gunnar are deeply in love but they live in a society where people are assigned a new spouse by lottery every seven years. As their final day together approaches, they grapple with the nightmare of being torn apart and facing life with another partner.” Before that, we flash again to their early days collectively—and get a window into the unusual circumstances of the society they stay in, illustrated quite completely by Anna’s mom and her personal rising assortment of “happy couple” portraits and that actually weird lottery scene. It’s a high-concept concept that leaves quite a lot of questions purposefully unanswered, however it’s executed with an austere class, to not point out some heaping spoonfuls of agony and heartbreak.

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