LOGLINE
When his younger brother is chosen for a ritual sacrifice to save their dying desert settlement, young hunter Ethan starts believing the sacrilegious claims of a mysterious young Woman, who struggles to remember the forgotten advanced world she came from, and embarks with her on a journey to find the mythical city of the gods and discover the truth about the origins of them all.
SYNOPSIS
In a barren wasteland far removed from the mythical city of the gods, there is one
human settlement left. They are dying out under the leadership of a zealous priest
who started conducting human sacrifice rituals after he experienced a religious
vision that convinced him it is the only way to appease the gods.
When his younger brother finds a mysterious young WOMAN buried in a strange
capsule, ETHAN, a capable young hunter, brings her into the settlement. The people
accept her as an omen of salvation, but her fragmented memories, which she
confides to Ethan, bring their beliefs into question. When his brother is chosen for the
next sacrifice ritual, he decides to set off from the settlement believing that the
Woman can help him find the city of the gods.
On their journey, Ethan and the Woman start discovering what happened to the
modern world that collapsed centuries ago, after a prodigious scientist discovered a
universal cure that practically stopped human aging, but caused unforeseen
consequences that proved to be fatal. In the end, they realize that the Woman is the
key to finding out the truth about the past, and the only possible future of humanity.
PROJECT INFORMATION
Production company: Void Pictures
Co-production company: Telekom Serbia
Supported by: Film Center Serbia
Language: English
Genre: SciFi / Adventure / Thriller / Action
Director: Filip Kovacevic
Producers: Filip Kovacevic, Djordje Stankovic, Vukota Antunovic
Attached cast: Nina Kiri (The Handmaids Tale, See)
Script: Filip Kovacevic, Filip Jevtic
Co-writers: Daniel Schaffer, Vladimir Mancic
Country of production: Serbia
Running time: approx. 110min
Estimated budget: 2,2 million eur
Acquired budget: 1.1 milion eur
Current status of production: Seeking for co-production partners in order to close
financial gap, casting and distribution
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
ABSOLUTION is a dystopian sci-fi adventure feature project supported by Film Center
Serbia and co-produced by Telekom Serbia, the largest broadcasting company in our
region, that stood behind the project as a full co-producing and financing partner.
The project is a pioneering dystopian sci-fi project originating from Eastern Europe
intended to be filmed in English for an international market and it is currently on
track for production in autumn 2024.
It is a project with a long development track, that started as soon as our production
company finished its debut indie feature “Incarnation” (2016) that circulated around a
number of mostly genre based film festivals including Raindance (UK), Night Visions
(Finland), Cottbus (Germany), Fantasporto (Portugal), Fantastic Zagreb (Croatia) and
Screamfest LA (US), and has since then participated in a number of genre based
workshops and in-development programs including European Genre Forum and
Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival Works in Progress, where much of our
Europe-based contacts were acquired and expanded.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
ABSOLUTION is a dystopian sci-fi adventure that explores the current state of our modern world by transporting us to its distant post-apocalyptic future. The story takes place in a world centuries removed from the sudden collapse of civilization, brought about by the destructive power of the most basic human fear that hides beneath all our anxieties — the fear of death. The film combines the mythological, action-adventure and coming-of-age sub-genres to tell an intriguing tale of discovery. It is driven by a strong sense of mystery, as the main character slowly uncovers the past of his world, and the origin, identity and purpose of the mysterious Woman, who turns out to be a key figure in the events that led to the fall of the forgotten civilization. The story is driven by Ethan, a troubled young hunter with a deep wound from his past, and I intend to tell it first and foremost from his subjective point of view. This will allow me to get into the subtle emotional exchanges between him and the Woman, who pulls him trough the adventure and challenges him to step up emotionally, intellectually and spiritually throughout the entire story.
Trough her aid, Ethan takes on a dangerous outer journey, complemented by a challenging inner one, and through discovering the past of his world, he overcomes his own painful past, and ultimately becomes the new leader of his people. I will keep the audience anchored in the subjective experience of the main character, in order to make this epic tale about the fall and rebirth of civilization approachable, personal and deeply emotional. Recently the script has entered the fine polishing stage, and the team of concept artists was attached to start developing the detailed visual approach of the story. The art direction will be grounded in reality, with a minimalistic approach to all the key elements of set design, props and costumes. The primitive settlement in which the story begins and ends will be built of leather and wooden tents, according to the logic of our story, and similarly the costumes will be based on leather and fur, since the settlement largely depends on the hunt of wild desert animals. Two films that stand out as the strongest influence on the design of our film are Darren Aronofsky's Noah, and Albert Hughes's Alpha, and the design of our film will fall somewhere in between, so the clothes and tents will be grounded in realism, minimalistic and slightly modern in design, but with a bit more of a crude "prehistoric" feel.
We have attached the director of photography and are working on attaching the
production designer, costume designer and location manager, so we could start
locking the designs and locations as the first reference visuals are being finished. We
already have a rough choice of all of the key locations, including the desert location
for the settlement that we have found in Serbia.
The second part of Ethan’s journey takes place in the ruins of the forgotten city that
will be constructed with a combination of real locations (like the metro tunnels in
Belgrade and some decayed interiors) and studio sets. We have already attached the
VFX supervisor (Vladan Djuric, Primer Studio) that has worked on our first indie
feature and in the meantime significantly expanded his experience. We believe he
can fully meet the demands of the project with his team of committed artists,
especially through collaboration with potential international partners that could help
with some of the more demanding sequences like the museum and the BIO-IN
Tower.
The ruins of the forgotten city demand a separate world building logic and will be
based on various film references like Prometheus and Blade Runner, to name a few,
as the collapse of the forgotten civilization happened around the middle of the 22nd
century, after the world’s leading corporation, BIO-SYN, released a widely distributed
universal cure that led to the global collapse of immunity. The design approach will
again be minimalistic and grounded, with the restrained rendering of the fallen
world’s technological advance, as the story revolves around a bio-tech-based, and not
a tech based apocalypse. The two heroes are in fact archeologists who are uncovering
the ruins of our future world. Again, it will all be rendered through their limited
subjective perspective, so the ruins will be rendered with a limited number of wide
exterior vistas interspersed with believable decayed interiors. The BIO-IN Tower will
be realized with a mix of locations and studio sets, to achieve its futuristic sterile
environment. Another reference we used, especially for this section, is Joseph
Kosinski’s Oblivion.
