new.life (2026)

Plot Summary

new.life by Yanti Peng tells the story of a journey through a virtual world. Through a unique and imaginative visual language, Peng evokes a sense of mundanity tinged with loneliness, and an unsettling "adaptation". The story draws inspiration from Peng’s observations of socialite culture and how these traits and psychologies permeate contemporary daily life. The internet and algorithms replicate human behaviour in high-speed, fragmented, and stochastic ways, leading to loose social ties and a fascination with class and symbolic status. new.life encapsulates this pursuit of "better" and "greater," while the film's initial title, "Melancholia," reflects the sense of melancholy and loneliness throughout the animation.

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