Interface

I gave this introduction from the stage before the film. You can watch it on YouTube. The transcript is lightly cleaned up.

What you’re about to see began in December 2017 as a YouTube web series created by Canadian animator Justin Tomchuk, known online as umami. Over nearly four years, Tomchuk released 24 episodes, each taking approximately two months to create by hand, culminating in the series finale in October 2021. In 2022, the complete series was compiled into this feature-length film.

Interface has since screened at festivals around the world: Toronto Animation Film Festival in 2023, L’Étrange Festival in Paris in 2024, presented by Flying Lotus, Chattanooga Film Festival, GLAS Animation, and Annecy International. Critics have called it a crown jewel of online esoterica and a landmark achievement in independent digital animation.

But I believe this film speaks more powerfully today than when it was made. As artificial intelligence rapidly evolves, we’re witnessing the commodification of human thoughtspace. Our attention, creativity, and consciousness is becoming raw material for corporate systems to harvest and process. Out of circuitry and code, we have begun to raise a false god in our own image. An idol that consumes our attention as sacrifice, feeding on the very minds that built it, proof that gods that we create always require more than they give.

Like high fashion gesturing at patterns we’ll see on the streets tomorrow, Interface previews anxieties we will perhaps encounter in years to come.

This screening is brought to you tonight by Grime Ethics Media. This is our first film screening. We’re hoping to bring more of these to Cincinnati, focusing on experimental and indie films that deserve a bit bigger audience. So if you dig this tonight, let us know. We’d love to bring more of this kind of work to Cincinnati. If you want to stay plugged in for future screenings, give our Facebook and Instagram pages a follow. That way we can let you know what’s going on.

Thank you for being here, everybody. Enjoy the film.

Earlier that day, I went live on Facebook to invite people. This is the script I wrote for it, so what I said on camera may differ in places.

Hey everyone! As you already know, Cincinnati has a vibrant alternative arts scene: experimental music, independent creators, people doing weird, meaningful work. But tonight at 7pm at the Esquire Theatre, we’re bringing you something special: Interface.

It’s a rare big-screen screening of a surrealist, award-winning animated film that speaks even more powerfully today than when it was made.

Interface began in December 2017 as a YouTube web series created by Canadian animator Justin Tomchuk, known online as umami. Over nearly four years, he released 24 episodes, each taking about two months to create, culminating in October 2021. The complete work was compiled into this feature-length film in 2022.

And this isn’t just some obscure internet project. Interface has screened at major international festivals: Toronto Animation Film Festival in 2023, L’Étrange Festival in Paris in 2024 where it was presented by Flying Lotus, Chattanooga, GLAS Animation, and Annecy. Critics have called it “the crown jewel of online esoterica” and a landmark in independent digital animation.

But here’s why it feels especially urgent right now.

Interface is set in a world where a corporate AI harvests something called “cerebral electricity” from supernatural beings, absorbing their memories and abilities until it grows far beyond its original design.

When Tomchuk was making this between 2017 and 2021, it played as surrealist horror. Science fiction. But here we are in 2025, with AI models trained on millions of hours of scraped data, humanoid robots working in factories, and CEOs predicting AGI within a few years, and suddenly the parallels don’t feel so distant.

Out of circuitry and code, we’ve begun to raise a false god in our own image, an idol that consumes our attention as sacrifice, feeding on the very minds that built it. Proof that the gods we create always demand more than they give.

I like to think of Interface as being like high fashion: it gestures at patterns we’ll all be wearing tomorrow. Except here, it’s not clothes on a runway. It’s the anxieties of AI and corporate power already threading into our daily lives.

And what really struck me is this: Interface doesn’t show the moment of resistance. The catastrophe already happened. The protagonists are just trying to survive in a world already remade by these forces. And in that way, it resonates with where we are right now.

So if you’re in Cincinnati and want to see something truly unique, disturbing and beautiful animation, full of references to Edward Hopper, Magritte, Dalí, Michelangelo, with an unforgettable soundtrack, come out tonight. It runs just under two hours, and I promise you’ll be thinking about it for days.

This screening is brought to you by Grime Ethics Media. It’s actually our very first film screening, and we’re hoping to do more, focusing on experimental and indie films that deserve a bigger audience. If you like this, let us know, because we’d love to build this into something bigger for Cincinnati.

That said, Grime Ethics isn’t leaving experimental music behind. We’re just expanding to bring more of the strange, meaningful work we love into the city.

Alright, I need to head over to the Esquire and finish setting up for the 7pm show, but if you can make it out tonight, come say hi. And if not, follow Grime Ethics Media here on Facebook and Instagram so we can keep you in the loop for the next one.

Thanks for watching, everyone. Enjoy the film!