Silver Breath - Matt Bendo CSC, AIC - Short Film

The title Silver Breath refers to a mixture of fragility and artificiality. “Breath” evokes life, intimacy, and something fleeting, while “Silver” suggests the preserved, the synthetic, the metallic trace of something once alive. It’s like the final whisper of a dying machine. The film lives in that tension between decay and memory, silence and signal. I like the title because it combines two very different textures in a single phrase, something human, and something not.

The story is set in a distant future where human knowledge has eroded into myth. A lone man visits a relic from the old world, a music box containing a girl who sings an ethereal, mechanical lullaby. To him, she isn’t a machine, but something closer to a spirit or a siren, casting a spell he can’t quite comprehend.

He’s tried many times to awaken her—like winding a broken device. This time, something flickers to life. He speaks a word etched into the metal casing “OmniSov” a forgotten brand name from a long-extinct technology company. It’s one of the last remnants of human language, though its meaning is lost.

When he finally rips the glass enclosure from the device, it’s not out of anger, but instinct. In trying to take her with him, he breaks the very thing that made her sing. He’s just a man in the ruins of the world, reaching for something beautiful and destroying it in the process.

Camera provided by MAKETHEFILMS
Lenses provded by Blazar - shot on the MANTIS 1.33X Anamorphic Primes