Film  

Orb tells the story of a mother who just lost her child however she is given the chance to bring him back to life and make him immortal through a technology that enhances human life span.

Orb is a short science fiction film by director Darine Hotait that questions our understanding of the repulsion between mortality and immortality— two extremities of thought in our nature. Orb tells the story of a mother who just lost her child however she is given the chance to bring him back to life and make him immortal through a technology that enhances human life span.

"We think we die.  We fear to let go.  We think to ourselves, 'Can we become immortal?' Have you ever wished to be immortal?"

The sci fi genre is underrepresented and almost non-existent in Middle Eastern/ Arabic speaking cinema. With this film, Hotait proposes a vision of Beirut in the year 2050.

The director is looking to crowd fund the project through Zoomaal.

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Hotait is a futurist and is passionate about the technological advancement in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence and their effect on the human evolution.

The New York-based award winning screenwriter, film director and short story writer Hotait received her MFA in Film directing from Art Center College of Design in California and is the founder of Cinephilia Productions, an independent film production company.

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 Artificial Intelligence  

On the eve of a technological breakthrough, an insignificant janitor and a prominent engineer are faced with a decision that will alter the course of humanity: the release of the first aware computer system into the world.

In this gritty short film, 1.7 billion lives are at stake as time is running out to sort out the difference between ethics and heroism. With the technician gone, a self-aware machine takes a chance and offers a janitor the opportunity to save humanity and change history.

A choice has to be made, but with dire consequences of self-aware human-level artificial intelligence.  This short by Henry Dunham delivers big ideas with a simple set up that highlights the impact of effective writing while utilizing irresistible suspense.

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Dunham was inspired to create this short once he felt that he finally had access to the equipment that allowed him to produce the short with the exact cinematic vision he felt was appropriate for the story. What Dunham does is take what others might stretch out to a diluted full feature and boils it down to the key elements to create a gripping short.

With The Awareness, we have all the elements of a full feature: a character estranged from his family, an egomaniac tech genius, a rogue machine, cops and guns. However, by focusing on creating a short from these variables, Dunham in no way leaves out the gut-punch ride, instead he just saved us 80-minutes of waiting for the good parts.  In fact, once the story really picks up the writing is strong enough that this short really grabs you with just a janitor and a monitor screen.



SOURCE  Short of the Week

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