Wasteland is a five-part anthology film that deals with isolation, mental illness, and the subjectivity of reality. Each of the five parts can be watched individually, but when viewed in sequence, each story brings out a more interesting and distinct context to its respective pieces.
Two robots embark on a quest to become human.
Lord Donald and Lady Nancy reside in the magnificent but run-down Longleigh House with James, their mentally disabled adult son. Nancy has fallen seriously ill and Donald is preparing to sell the house to raise enough money to pay for an operation. He arranges for the family nurse, Mary, to take care of Nancy while he leaves to tend to the sale. However, James wants to prove to his father that he can look after his mother on his own and decides to lock Mary out of the house. It isn't long before James starts mixing his mother's pills and forgetting to take his own medication, and as the stress of looking after his mother increases, so too does the severity of his own condition.
Following a bomb scare in the 1960s that locked the Webers into their bomb shelter for 35 years, Adam now ventures forth into Los Angeles to obtain food and supplies for his family, and a non-mutant wife for himself.
Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.
In Oklahoma, Agnes, a lonely waitress living in an isolated and dilapidated roadside motel, meets Peter, a quiet and mysterious man with whom she establishes a peculiar relationship.
A shut-in´s routine is disrupted by the visit of his older brother. The disruption leads to joy in the end.
Having lived illegally in Canada for the past eight years, Danny Gallagher returns to his family home in rural Donegal. He spends his days isolated, seeking to make sense of the bruises left by his past by recording an audio tape for a person that he no longer knows. Only when the tape is finished, and the house is cleared, can he finally move on.
An aspiring young writer tracks a literary titan suffering from writers block to his refuge in rural Italy and learns about life and love from the irascible genius and his daughters.
Bud Clay races motorcycles in the 250cc Formula II class of road racing. After a race in New Hampshire, he has five days to get to his next race in California. During his road trip, he is haunted by memories of the last time he saw Daisy, his true love.
In the mid-1980s, the U.S. is poised on the brink of nuclear war. This shadow looms over the residents of a small town in Kansas as they continue their daily lives. Dr. Russell Oakes maintains his busy schedule at the hospital, Denise Dahlberg prepares for her upcoming wedding, and Stephen Klein is deep in his graduate studies. When the unthinkable happens and the bombs come down, the town's residents are thrust into the horrors of nuclear winter.
A lonely woman's prank phone call leads to an unexpected friendship with a grieving widow.
Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.
Adrift in the vast expanse of the ocean, a solitary boat carries three castaways—a man and two women. Stranded and devoid of any glimmer of rescue, they find solace in recounting the tales of their lives to one another. As they delve into their personal narratives, reminiscing about the circumstances that led them to this desolate predicament, they navigate through the depths of three distinct destinies. Bound by the confines of their shared space, every aspect of their existence becomes a boundary, underscoring their plight.
In the arctic, as Saiva is being born, a shaman declares that she is evil and will bring harm to all who become involved with her. Saiva is cast out of her tribe of herders and grows up to live a nomadic existence with Anja, a young woman she adopts as an infant. Then Loki, an injured and starving soldier, stumbles into their isolated lives. The women nurse him back to health, but treachery, violence and doom await them all.
Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
A young police woman is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.
Through four nonlinear but interconnected Finno-Ugric storylines, approximately 7,500 years ago, traces of the Kaalo meteorite – that struck the Estonian island of Saarema – left a profound mark on the peoples living along the Baltic Sea, shaping local myths and legends.
Tales of a man who carries a Persian Onager in his blood, a mother who drips honey from her body, and a writer who believes pollination is the key to salvation.