David (Beat Marti) is having a hard time letting go of his dying wife, Evelyn (Jana Klinge). In an effort to cheat death through cryonics, David puts he and his wife into a deep sleep in a cryo facility where they wake up years later alone in the now isolated facility. Even after hundreds of years, David has to learn the lesson that death will not be cheated.

Directed by Christoph Heimer, Kryo is a nearly 33-minute sci-fi short with enough suspense and drama to fill a full-length feature. With terrific performances from co-leads Beat Marti and Jana Klinge, Kryo is beautifully shot by Frederick Gomoll with an original score by Karol Obara that is driven and intense and helps to forward the action along from moment to moment.

Kryo is screening as part of the 2016 Indy Film Fest World Cinema block, with a particularly solid block of shorts this year in the offering. The film's production design by Johanna Wagner is sort of industrial meets space age, an isolating and barren design that elicits a sense of abandonment even for the film's audience.

For more information on Kryo, visit the Indy Film Fest website.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic