OtherLife

With her company OtherLife, Ren Amari (Jessica De Gouw) has developed a revolutionary technology: she can create artificial memories that feel like real experiences. Entire periods of life are simulated in seconds. Ren tests the system on herself, or rather, on her own mind. She also secretly treats her comatose brother with the implanted memories in the hope of bringing him back to consciousness. However, Ren finds herself in a moral conflict when her partner Sam (T.J. Power) raises the question of whether the technology should be used in the prison system. To relieve the burden on expensive “correctional facilities,” prisoners are to spend many years in virtual prison, while only minutes pass in the real world. Ren faces difficult decisions and at the same time discovers that her own reality is becoming increasingly blurred. The dividing lines between reality and simulation are becoming increasingly permeable... Director Ben C. Lucas' Australian science fiction thriller has its finger on the pulse of the times: set in the near future, it deals with ethical questions surrounding virtual reality, consciousness, and the perception of time. The film establishes an astonishingly dense atmosphere, even though the execution remains rather minimalistic—which does not detract from the suspense, however... "Ben C Lucas’s innovative rumination on the pitfalls of technology has Hollywood appeal and features a darkly charismatic performance from Jessica De Gouw." (Luke Buckmaster, in: The Guardian)