The Universe Is A Very Strange Place In Manuel Arija's ULTRAINNOCENCE

It's been a little while since we've heard from Spanish oddball auteur Manuel Arija but - yes, oh, yes - it's been worth the wait.

Arija has been quiet since first making waves here and on the international festival circuit with a string of very, very good and very, very weird short films (My Love Lives In The Sewers, La Pinata, Little Appliances) that showcased remarkable technical skills with a playful sense of the absurd.

After years of development and false starts across other projects, Arija now makes the step in to feature films with Ultrainnocense - a feature adapted from a stage play - and all the elements that made his short films so compelling are very much in effect here.

A religious organisation creates a scientific experiment to prove the existence of God. The chosen test subjects are Orión and Adán, two enlightened oddballs obsessed with signals. Confined in an experimental capsule and isolated from the outside world they try to establish contact with the divine through their own rituals. Everything starts to go wrong when Orión finds the secret Adán has been hiding.

With the feature now deep in post, Arija has shared a first trailer with us and it's fantastic stuff. Take a look below.