Terraform is an effects-loaded film by five ArtFx students in France.

The six-minute short begins as a tale being read to a child in a far-distant future.

“One day, the fire birds tore the sky apart,” says the voiceover, just before a wave of terraforming machines blaze through the Martian atmosphere and land on the rocky red planet. Splendid shots of spaceships and other machinery follow.

And there’s a companion “Making of Terraform” short where one of the students explains, “We wanted to tell the story as a folktale no one believes anymore.”

“Amazing and wonderful work of science as well as science fiction!” says David Brin in a congratulatory comment.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]