The Human Surge 3

The Human Surge 3 (El auge del humano 3) is a 2023 experimental film written and directed by Argentine filmmaker Eduardo Williams. It is a loose sequel to his 2016 film The Human Surge.

Production
Filming for The Human Surge 3 took place in multiple countries, particularly in Sri Lanka, Peru, and Taiwan. The film has a cast of nonprofessional actors, many of whom are LGBTI people. They were cast from residents close to the shooting locations except in Sri Lanka, where a more widespread search was needed to recruit LGBTI performers.

After The Human Surge, Williams had made the 2019 short film Parsi, which was shot on a GoPro 360 and edited with a virtual reality headset. The Human Surge 3 was shot on an Insta360 Titan, a 360° spherical camera.

Release
The Human Surge 3 premiered at the 76th Locarno Film Festival.

Critical reception
For Variety magazine, J. Kim Murphy wrote that although the film "provides itself the space to wander and arrive at new insights, the detachment can sometimes come across as a restraint that betrays an overall adventurous spirit." Slant Magazine reviewer David Robb described it as "a bold deconstruction of the cinema image, an ayahuasca-inflected study of globalization, and a mind-numbing work of video art juiced up with haphazard technical gimmickry". In a review for Filmmaker magazine, Vadim Rizov remarked that the film was "Williams's first film recapitulating prior work rather than discovering new modes, but to be fair, Surge 3 is unsurprising primarily in relation to his own self-created universe."