The Platform

The Platform is a 2019 Spanish social science fiction horror film directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. The film is set in a large, tower-style "Vertical Self-Management Center." Its residents, who are switched every month between its many floors, are fed via a platform which, initially filled with food at the top floor, gradually descends through the tower's levels, stopping for a fixed amount of time on each. The system inevitably leads to conflict, as the residents at the top levels get to eat as much as they can, with each level only getting the leftovers from the previous ones. The film's cast includes Iván Massagué, Antonia San Juan, Zorion Eguileor, Emilio Buale Coka and Alexandra Masangkay. It premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where it won the People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness. At TIFF, the film also secured a worldwide streaming deal with Netflix. It was released on the streaming service on March 20, 2020. Plot Goreng wakes in a concrete cell. His cellmate Trimagasi explains that they are in "The Pit", a tower-style holding facility. Once per day, food arrived on "The platform" - a solid slab of unspecified material - that lowers from level 1, stopping for two minutes on each level. Prisoners can only eat when the platform stops on their level, and are subjected to fatal temperatures if they keep the food. The lower the level, the less food is left on the platform. Prisoners are randomly reassigned to a new level each month. Trimagasi reveals that when assigned to level 132, he and his former cellmate cannibalized someone who had fallen down. One day, a woman named Miharu rides down the platform. Trimagasi explains she descends the pit once in a while to search for her child. Goreng volunteered to spend six months in the facility in exchange for a diploma, while Trimagasi is serving a year-long sentence for manslaughter.