The world has become uninhabitable due to environmental disasters, wars, and the depletion of resources. Thousands of wealthy people board Aniara, a colossal spaceship the size of a city, to migrate to Mars. But what is expected to be a three-week journey is thrown into chaos when an asteroid strikes the engines. The ship veers off course and falls irreversibly into the infinity of space. At first, the passengers hold on to hope thanks to the ship’s comforts, the shopping malls inside Aniara, entertainment events, and above all, the artificial intelligence on board, called Mima, which revives their old memories. Yet as time stretches on, dreams fade, and Mima collapses under the weight of humanity’s boundless expectations. What follows is a disintegration of law and order. Society falls apart, and the voyage that started off as a story of migration heads towards an existential dead end.

Like Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), Aniara focuses less on mankind’s search for salvation than on the moment of confrontation with its inner emptiness. At the same time, it leaves the viewer with this pressing question: if we were also to face such a void in the near future, what would we do?