The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A short film that can be compared to films of great importance, for the issue that it talks about, for the vividness of the scenes, for introspection of the character. In a not too distant future, the entire world population was wiped out by an alien invasion, except the protagonist, who finds himself living alone, in despair and discouragement that he was perhaps the only one survived on Earth. When finally he finds another human being like him, hope again turns on, but unfortunately it is just another alien trap. The final scene is very touching, because we understand as the protagonist must put aside humanity left to him and kill the other human, but in the end - driven by guilt and by the awareness of not having an escape - he decides to kill himself. I think it's a masterpiece, I really recommend it!

Population Zero is the latest project by filmmaker Robert Kouba. In his current outing a true fan of his work can see the growth he has experienced in his craft. Population Zero features more actors, locations and running time than many of his previous films. The cast is comprised of favorites from his portfolio of works. In the distant future after the fall of mankind, and lone survivor finds what he believes is another young survivor. Children in any horror genre of film give me the creeps. The same can be said for this movie. The acting, picture and sound are all on par which by now is a regular occurrence for Kouba. Any fan of his previous work will enjoy his latest piece of art.

Population Zero is a German-language 12-minute short film from 1.5 years ago. The writer and director is young Swiss filmmaker Robert Kouba and he cast Julian Schaffner in here with whom he works regularly and also his own dad. The latter gives us the introduction about aliens who came to Earth and seem to have turned everything into disaster. Not much later, there is a considerably jump in time and we follow Schaffner's character for the rest of the film. It is a world where human life has almost completely ceased to exist. Yet he finds a boy somewhere. Is there hope for the people who are struggling so hard in this post-apocalyptic world? There certainly is no hope for Kouba if he does not manage to step up in the coming years. It's a bit disappointing that this was already his seventh short movie as filmmaker and yet I see no real talent here. Still he is only in his early 20s, began truly early with making movies, so there is still hope. However, "Population Zero" is not a good film and it's sometimes even difficult to understand what exactly is going on with the main character.

Usually most independent shorts of this caliber are missing something; either the sound mix is terrible, the acting is so/so or the cinematography is just awful. In Population Zero, this is not the case. The production value is of studio quality. Writer and Director Robert Kouba is no stranger to this medium and has successfully completed serveral shorts. Although there aren't many spoken lines in the film, the cast was just brilliant and the cinematography reminded me of cut scenes from a video game that was just impeccable. Every detail was carefully looked after that made this a joy to watch. I look forward to seeing this concept developed out into a full feature someday.