A participatory sci-fi short film
by Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters

We live in a world where digital technology and AI increasingly trap us in our heads. Through screens, our minds are constantly stimulated while our bodies, and the physical world around us, fade into the background. These digital systems promise frictionless perfection, in sharp contrast to our messy, tangible reality. DEEP SOUP is a participatory short sci-fi film that challenges this imbalance.

By turning the tables on technology and AI, it invites viewers and participants to reconnect with the material world. Rewiring perception, it offers a new way of seeing – not people, but matter, movement, and gravity.

In the film post-humanists Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters are developing a physical intelligence model: DEEP SOUP. One that learns from matter, not from data. With humans from all over the planet they have gathered recordings of matter to feed their model. The soup thickens.

Participants can upload their videos to the website deepsoup.io, where they will contribute to the training of a physical intelligence model

Premiered at IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling 2025, Netherlands

Length: 16:48 minutes

Online campaign: a teaser, 8 vlogs and audience contributions

Written and directed by Luna Maurer & Roel Wouters

Produced by Corine Meijers

Initiated by Robin Coops

Starring Hugo Hamlet

Music by Philipp Johann Thimm

Camera by Jasper Wolf, Thomas Weber

Visual design by Julia Born & Dennis Vugts

DEEP SOUP is a Studio Biarritz production

Supported by Netherlands Film Fund and Creative Industries Fund NL