36 Stairs is the new live-action short from director Grzegorz Jonkajtys, the award-winning creator of Ark and Legacy. Viewers of those mini-masterworks know that Jonkajtys is an exceptional storyteller and a talented animator. For the first time, he’s using those gifts to make a life-action movie, and the results are nothing short of jaw-dropping.

The actual film won’t be released until early 2010. What we have here is a 75-second teaser. It provides a few tantalizing clues as to what the story is about, while fleshing out the film’s visual extravagance and dystopian, futuristic setting.

I’m assuming this is a “virtual backlot” movie, like SIN CITY and SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. Instead of being physically constructed, the movie’s “sets” have been digitally rendered on a computer. This mix of real actors and fake sets can be distracting in films like the STAR WARS prequels, but with other filmmakers the virtual backlot is a godsend – it lets their imaginations run wild. Jonkajtys is a case in point.

The film stars Rodrigo Lopresti as Jeffrey Brief, a tragic Everyman in a world where humans depend on bio-mechanical alterations to withstand the deteriorating climate. We see a few of these alterations in the trailer, first an organic-looking respirator and later a phone that appears to be physically attached to Jeffrey’s hand. In part, the film looks to be a biological horror movie, like David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME. Like that 1983 sci-fi masterpiece, 36 Stairs appears to be exploring how technology can overtake our lives and destroy us.

Many shots in the trailer establish the frightening world Jeffrey lives in. A scene in a hallway, with rows and rows of lockers standing sentinel while Jeffrey is backlit by a blinding light source, has the feel of a bureaucratic nightmare – like something out of Orson Welles’s THE TRIAL or Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL. The central scene shows Jeffrey making a desperate phone call to his health insurance provider. The automated voice on the other end of the line tells him, “I’m sorry, this number is invalid.” It all feels insanely timely.

The attention to detail in the wide cityscape shots would do sci-fi heavy-hitters like Ridley Scott and James Cameron proud. In fact, forget AVATAR. This is the science-fiction movie I want to see.