Adaptation of a 1991 short story by Terry Bisson, that can be read here. This short won the Grand Prize at the Seattle Science Fiction Museum’s film festival.
edit: There are other adaptations:
- Directed by Jeff Frumess (2010). IMDb
- Directed by Safiyya Lea (2015). IMDb
- Directed by Jason Housecroft (2017) on Amazon Prime. IMDb
- Directed by Thomas Soper (uploaded 2018)
I’m a big fan of this short film. I think it really emphasizes the dialogue of the short story via the work of the actors, including the non-speaking diners.
It’s possible it loses something displaying the aliens as “meat” but I think that’s shored up pretty well by the story itself.