Laboratory Conditions (17:01)
Dust.tv; IMDb; official website; YouTube

This 2017 short film was presented by both Dust and Alter in 2022.

I wasn't quite sure whether I should put this review under "sci-fi" or "supernatural", because it's a bit of both. I suppose I could link to it in both categories, but I'm just going to go with "science fiction". Marisa Tomei plays Dr. Emma Holloway, who goes searching for a patient that never showed up at the hospital. She finds a secret scientific project led by Marjorie Cane (Minnie Driver). Cane and her team have created a chamber in which they will put Holloway's dying patient, a chamber designed to detect any kind of evidence of a soul leaving the patient's body when he dies. As it turns out, the equipment fails to detect anything, but Holloway sees the soul, trapped in the chamber, even though no one else can see it. I'm guessing this is because she was relying on faith, which none of the scientists had. (For demanding proof precludes the possibility of faith.) And that's all I want to say about the plot, except that things get very creepy... and I was left wanting to see what would happen next, after the film ends. I'm disappointed that it ended where it did. But I still thought it was a pretty cool short film, and would work even better as a longer film (possibly a horror film).