'The Last Mechanic' is a short film set in the East Midlands in the future, 2051. It's speculative fiction in its truest possible sense, making bold predictions based on present day realities - everything from climate change to self-driving cars to lab-grown organs. It is a film, like the study of futurology itself, that is less concerned with making 100% accurate claims than it is putting forward a convincing account of someone who has lived through the past 30 years. In many ways it's a warning.The unnamed protagonist, a 60-something male, breaks the fourth wall and talk to us directly about his life in the junkyard whilst repairing a ‘vintage’ car from 2010. When we meet him we recognise him as a hyper-chatty, functional drunk, something of a lyrical Del Boy type. He likes to act like he has it all figured out, but as we learn, he carries a tremendous sense of guilt, failure, and shame. Can you witness 30 years of steadily worsening conditions and call yourself blameless if you didn't even try to stop it? He doesn't believe so. Then again, he is still running a secret petrol car dealership.