"Tomo" is a short film about a man and his trusty robot both marooned on an ice planet. If you think you've seen it all, think again, because this robot has a one sex mind.

Director Paul Catling's vision of the future of robotics is gritty and sexy. His robots simulate sex with one another in a way that is positively orgasmic. The short film "Tomo" took the jury prize in international short filmmaking at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

What was the inspiration for the robot design--it's kinda of both futuristic and retro?

I've always been a massive fan of robots and in particular Japanese manga robots. I love the way their design ethic is all about the look and pays little attention to function. The companion [in "Tomo"] has just a lens as a face because I felt it would be interesting to try to get the audience to empathize with a character that is little more than a household appliance - beauty is only skin deep and all that.

I call your film a hipper sexier version of "Robinson Crusoe on Mars." Minus a monkey, plus a robot with a sexual appetite. But it's more than that. How would you describe it?

I really wanted the film to work as a drama about 2 characters, I felt the sci-fi aspect was secondary to their relationship. To me, it's a costume drama that happens to be in the future. I think sci-fi can too often be about big sci-fi ideas and pays too little attention to the characters that inhabit those worlds. "Tomo" was an attempt to address this imbalance.

After the film, I had a discussion with another critic that wondered what kind of rating the film could get. I immediately speculated that the robot sex would garner it an "R" rating. Whatta do you think? I take it that your intent was to make the robot sex sexy, right?

Yes, it was my intention to make the robot sexy. I looked up pornography in the Oxford English dictionary and it states that it must involve people in some way so I guess this should not get an "R" rating. I think it's totally subjective, if you think robots fucking is sexy then it's pornography; if not, then it's like a watching an engine running.

What, from a technical standpoint (like say, software), did you use to construct the robot and the special effects in the film?

I used 3ds max 4.2 to do the robot. The motion capture data taken from the actor who played the companion and was used to drive the realistic motion. In much the same way as Gollum and incidentally, the idea was conceived to do it this way at the same time, over 2 years ago.

It bothered me that the robot and his human superior never actually entered their ship, and also, that they would have left the ship in the first place. Was shooting the film in the ice and snow a budgetary decision? And was the ice and snow real (I mean, at times, I wondered if it was all blue screen)?

I never wanted this to take place on the ship. The film was shot totally on location on a glacier in Iceland with just the two actors and me as the only crew. It has absolutely no bluescreen! The first line in the movie is "I'm scared to go there, I'm scared to go to the ship." I didn't feel it was important to know why exactly. If they weren't there, there must be a reason; I could have written in some exposition about radioactivity but I presumed the audience might equate it to some nuclear submarine disaster.

Does sex and science-fiction go hand in hand? I mean, Heinlein had a juvenile infatuation with sex in his novels, and I appreciate it, Hell, wallow in it as he did. One of the adult SF touchstones is the effect of technology on how we have sex. Your film suggests that robots may take the humans completely out of the equation and pursue their own version of sexual relations.

I think film and sex go hand in hand to some degree. Sex is such a powerful urge that if 2 men are stuck together with no hope of escape and they happen to have a porn tape, it would become a major influence on their day to day life. The use of sex in "Tomo" was a device to get under the skin of the characters - for the robot, it is an attempt to be more human, for the human, it illustrates his desperation. The end credits were an attempt to show that there is a world bigger than the ice planet, perhaps a world where robots run businesses, make pornos for the masses and treat their girls in the same way as the human population.

"I, Robot" is being adapted for the screen. Any thoughts about adapting Asimov?

It's a dream of mine.

It's a dream of mine as well Paul. And "Tomo" is the kind of robot story Asimov would admire--a place where mechanical beings participate in basic human activities and take part in the emotions that accompany them.

Jonathan W. Hickman