From Season Two:
Digital Antiquities Directed by JP Chan
By 2036, data loss has become a thing of the past. All digital media is instantly uploaded to the internet and permanently stored in the cloud, safely backed-up on servers scattered around the world. Only a handful of small businesses in the world have the expertise to recover data from pre-cloud devices. On a hot summer day, a young man named Kai visits Digital Antiquities, a store in eastern Pennsylvania specializing in data recovery and sales of vintage electronics. He shows Cat, the store’s only employee, an old compact disc left to him from his deceased mother and asks her to recover its contents. Will Cat help him find a working CD reader? And what will they discover among the contents of the disc?
Spring of Sorrow Directed by Suzi Yoonessi
Sisters Lily and Isabelle live a nomadic life, displaced by global warming. Trapped in the desert in the midst of a water shortage, Isabelle offers hope to her younger sister by telling a whimsical fairytale that allegorically explains how this tragic world came to be. When Isabelle falls ill, Lily embarks on an imaginative journey in a magical paper cut-out forest to find the mythical Spring of Sorrow, an everlasting spring of fresh water. Along the way, she forges a friendship with an eccentric florist, creates flowers and animals, and learns a valuable lesson about environmental responsibility.
Beholder by Nisha Ganitra
Beholder takes place in the biosphere-protected Red Estates, a gated community with a socially conservative political majority. At a clinic where patients can genetically engineer their children, Sasha, the wife of rising political star Bobby Aryana, is informed that her baby carries the genetic marker for homosexuality. By the laws of Red Estates, this is an aberration that must be dealt with immediately, and Sasha must decide between staying faithful to the love of her life or risking everything. Touching on issues of race, sexual orientation, and conformity, Beholder examines the notion of identity and the costs of belonging.
That Which Once Was Kimi Takescue
In the year 2032, Vicente, an 8-year-old Caribbean boy, has been displaced by global warming and fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile Northern metropolis. Orphaned and without connection to family or friends, Vicente now lives in a children’s shelter on the fringes of the city, and struggles with anxiety, rage, and disturbing memories of the tragedy he fled. On a hot summer day, Vicente sits outside the shelter and sees a mysterious man smashing large chunks of ice against the pavement. Thus begins an unexpected friendship between Vicente and Siku, the ice carver: two people from different worlds who have both experienced tremendous loss. Through their bond, Siku ultimately helps Vicente confront his past and understand the value of memory.
Remigration Directed by Barry Jenkins
Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn’t obsolete, but it’s scarce. The city has created a program to “remigrate” long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?
White Directed by Sayeeda Clarke
It’s another 120-degree day with five more days to Christmas and hot is the only season left in New York City. Global warming has accelerated and the sun has become a tangible threat to survival. Bato and his wife Gina are expecting a baby, but they weren’t expecting it so early. Although they planned to have the baby at home, Gina now requires the services of a clinic for the premature delivery. With no money for the clinic, Bato enters into a race against the sun, the birth, his community, and even his own identity to save his family as he is forced to sell the new currency of this world.
Worker drone Directed by Sharat Rajue
Rahul’s days blend together. GlobeCom India, his employer, specializes in remote systems operation. When Rahul leaves his dungeon-like GlobeCom office, he goes to his dungeon-like living quarters in Technology City. But things change when an American contractor announces a new partnership with GlobeCom — Planet Dogstar, a massive multi-player online flying combat simulator where players shoot down targets on an alien planet. GlobeCom is hired to operate and manage the game. To decide who will lead and manage the operation, the company organizes an office showdown: whoever shoots down the most targets wins the promotion as well as a one-week furlough to leave Technology City. Can Rahul beat his coworkers to win the game?
Exposure By Mia Trachinger
Roxanne is a government agent who works as a live body contagion to immunize urban populations. Jesse is an anti-contagion activist, whose office is breeched by Roxanne’s team. Led by Roxanne, the contagions try to contain the workers inside the building, chasing them down in an attempt to mass-inoculate, while Jesse, caught in a cycle of fear and illness, soon learns that there are no easy answers.
May 6 2011, 06:20:59 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:00:30 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:04:09 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:18:11 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:20:19 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:24:39 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:28:05 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 07:34:08 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 08:33:43 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 10:49:55 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 11:56:50 UTC 1 year ago
May 6 2011, 16:55:20 UTC 1 year ago
OK, I asked, but since this is a public post I'm going to assume it's OK and link. And spread the word in every other way I can. This is what I want to see more of, from science fiction.
::dabs eyes again::
May 6 2011, 17:09:21 UTC 1 year ago