Congratulations to Filmmaker contributor Zach Wigon, who won this month’s Hammer to Nail Short Film Contest with his cyber-age paranoid romance, Someone Else’s Heart. From Michael Tully’s post:

Is our increasing dependence on virtual communication deforming the way we interact with others in our real, everyday lives? Isn’t there something inherently strange about all this “how many friends and followers do you have” business of late? While the internet is without question an incredibly useful contribution to our modern world, on the other side of that coin, take a few steps back and watch someone “interacting” with their computer. Whether they are playing online poker or writing an email or reading a work of great literature or speaking with a loved one, there they are, just sitting there, their glazed eyes mesmerized by a flat, glowing screen.

In Someone Else’s Heart, writer/director Zachary Wigon explores his own suspicions about the puzzling direction in which romantic human interaction has been heading in the early 21st century. Though Wigon’s film asks more questions than it answers—in a good way, mind you—by the end, his point is made very clear: before you start dating someone, you should probably actually meet them first.

The trailer for Zach’s film is posted above, and I hope there’s an opportunity for the entire short to be seen by a wide audience in the months ahead. Zach made the short as a prelude to a feature — the short, which stands on its own, is comprised of scenes from the feature screenplay — and I agree with Tully: it’s tremendously accomplished and especially timely.