The New Jersey Film Festival will premiere Agophobia a magical science fiction film this Thursday!

The New Jersey Film Festival will premiere Agophobia a mysterious and magical science fiction film this Thursday! Here is an interview I did with Agophobia Director Benjamin Ross Hayden.

Nigrin: Your experimental film Agophobia focuses on combining the organic and technological. Tell us a bit about your film and why you decided to make it.

Hayden: Agophobia is a Trans-human odyssey. A time beyond humanity within a digital construct. The style is a fusion of organic humanity’s remaining impact upon the avatar’s. My question was: In the future, what would the children of humanity, those digital avatar’s we made as a reflection of humanity that gave birth to them. What would these avatars embody of us? What would they leave behind? How would they carry forward humanity’s virtue, or reflect its fears. It’s phobias. 

These phobias are; Obsolescence. Duplication. Organic deformation, or Augmentation. Self-affirmation. Complete self-awareness. The characters of Agophobia are children of these phobias, brought forward by the digital era.

We are changed by the tools accelerating faster than we are. It is worth identifying the relationship as the tools we engineered are beginning to move us. I chose to make this film to confront the question that as we move forward into the digital age, what of human behavior stands to change, and what is left behind?

I believe in reciprocal accountability. To the subject of futurism, humanity needs to progress, while understanding you cannot change an aspect of one thing without affecting another.

Nigrin: The cinematography and soundtrack used in the film are really pretty amazing. Tell us why you decided to shoot and score the film this way? What formats did you use?

Hayden: The formats used for Agophobia were based on using unknown digital methods to create the unseen digital worlds. The style is the product of a rare mathematical program to engineer the worlds seen in this film. The film The Fountain inspired these distinct worlds. The film 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired sonic elements of the soundtrack. Raw harmonic frequencies we gathered to create mechanical tones giving energy to the score. No sound was recorded live during filming of Agophobia.  

Nigrin: Do you consider Agophobia a science fiction experimental film?

Hayden: The style of Agophobia is modeled after the protocol of artificial life in the future. Oral expression would become an obsolete form of communication. Physical prescience within a digital environment would be one’s avatar navigating in a simulated non-linear fashion, encounters are brief and self-concerned, and travel would be more instantaneous. The structure is a reflection of digital reality. The story of a driving force, the RAM, on a journey to escape a digital construct. Agophobia is progressive science fiction to certain audiences, and appears experimental to others. Agophobia is my personification of humanity’s present condition.

Nigrin: Where did you shoot your film and how long did it take to make?

Hayden: Agophobia was created mainly in Alberta, Canada. Important portions were filmed with teams in New Jersey and New York State where the physical environments completely reflected a state of global futurism we sought to portray. The film has been over a year to create with a team of sixty artists, performers, and technicians. Together we continue as a force creating fantastic international cinema.

 

Here is the trailer for Agophobia:

http://vimeo.com/72681903

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another great sci fi film from Brazil Bebete and Daniboy will be screened after to Agophobia.  Here is more info on this program:

Thursday-October 3-Ruth Adams #001–6PM $10; $9; $8
Agophobia- Benjamin Ross Hayden (Calgary, Canada)
Agophobia taps into fears about a future where technology reigns supreme and lost beings populate cyber-intersected domains. A prospective hero called the Ram decides to defy his assigned place and escape this world. 2013; 25 min.

Bebete and Daniboy - Ruy Veridiano (Sao Paolo, Brazil)
In a future world, where there is no kind of prejudice related to gender or sexual orientation, Daniboy is a young bisexual who faces the problems of every teenager at his age, but can always count on his best friend Bebete. His life changes when he falls for Felipe, a few hours before seeing his dying father in hospital. Shot as an experimental sci-fi musical, the film features Rodrigo Pavon as Daniboy, Katiana Rangel as Bebete, the Spanish electropop diva La Prohibida as Daniboy's mother, and the Brazilian opera singer Francisco Campos Neto as his father. In Portuguese, subtitled. 2013; 30 min.

Thursday, October 3, 2013 at 6:00 p.m.
Ruth Adams Building #001/Rutgers University,
131 George Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey
$10=General; $9=Students+Seniors; $8=Rutgers Film Co-op Friends
Information: (848) 932-8482; www.njfilmfest.com