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Original Film Title: Mortal Exile
Director’s Name: Rowan Gustave Moorkens O’Reilly
Writer’s Name: Rowan Gustave Moorkens O’Reilly
Producer: Rowan Gustave Moorkens O’Reilly
Country of Origin: Ireland
Country of Filming: China, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan
Language: English
Runtime: 38 minutes 55 seconds
Film Description:
Mortal Exile is a short gritty retro-cyberpunk sci-fi thriller, and follows Omri, a neurodivergent homeless teenager. Omri’s escape from poverty aboard a smuggling ship comes at a terrible price – after an invasive cyberbiotic surgery, his memories are ‘encrypted,’ leaving him indentured to his captors until he pays off his smuggling debt. But when a young PhD student offers Omri a chance to recover his stolen memories, he finds himself being hunted by a team of ruthless mercenaries. Omri’s journey explores trauma and meaning through a cyberpunk lens. Set in the 1990s and filmed over a period of eight years, Mortal Exile echoes the themes of memory erasure by resembling a worn-out videotape – filmed in 4:3 with a nostalgic lo-fi charm.