Laser Days Screens Acid City at 19 Festivals in 12 Countries

Ridgewood, Queens based studio Laser Days, helmed by Jack Welch and Will Freudenheim will be showing their short Acid City, around the world at 19 festivals and a whopping 12 companies. The pair announced it last month.

In Acid City, an enormous megapolis is severed by a polluted sea, a place where acid chews away the foundations and contorts its citizens' bodies. As a documentary crew descends to report on the city, the film pulls in real New York City interviews inside of the team's motion capture and game-engine animation set up. According to the Krakow Film Festival, the city is a composite of New York, Karachi and Tokyo. Science fiction is just becoming the news," the two told Cartoon Brew.

The film has been making a run elsewhere after its premiere in Rotterdam as it's the studio's first original film. The two met in a middle school band in Westchester, New York, and then started Laser Days in the pandemic. They now describe themselves as a "real-time rendering, world-building studio." So why not film?

For more reading, see A boardgame about climate change that melts as you play, Hell Gate's profile of Laser Days and Cartoon Brew on the film's Rotterdam premiere.