Rahul Desai

In 2018, Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching put the life in screenlife. It marked the natural progression of ‘screenlife storytelling’ — a visual format where events happen entirely on computer screens, smartphones and cameras — into the real world. Until then, the horrors of technology had been literalised by the found-footage and supernatural genres. But Searching featured a father who looks for his missing daughter by following her digital footprints. His internet sleuthing reveals how little he really knew her; the technology he uses to find her is what had isolated her to begin with. Vikramaditya Motwane’s CTRL goes a step further; it expands the plausibility of the genre by unfolding in an age that puts the screen in screenlife. CTRL marks its progression into the reality of a virtual world — one where being watched is simply a natural consequence of feeling seen.