Kansas, 1923. A fallen World War I aviator bets his future on a mysterious machine in a traveling carnival—convinced that exploiting it will restore his dignity, untilA disgraced WWI aviator discovers a mysterious machine who believes it’s alive. As they become a grotesque carnival act, the pilot sees a path to redemption — but the being he exploits may be the only moral presence in the room.

SYNOPSIS:

In the aftermath of World War I, disgraced British aviator Leonard Foxley scrapes by as a carnival attraction in the American Midwest, drowning his guilt and failures in spectacle and self-deception. When he encounters Otto—an inexplicable, sentient machine wandering west under its own rules—Len sees a chance to save himself at last.

But as Otto’s presence draws crowds, danger, and the attention of men who trade in ownership and control, Len is forced into a reckoning: whether to exploit the machine as a miracle, sell it as a weapon, or protect it as something alive. Set against the decaying glamour of traveling carnivals and the industrial aftershocks of the Great War, Otto is a mythic American fable about invention, guilt, and the cost of redemption.