| Rose Red |
| Synopsis
A man's recurring dreams and an investigation into a security breach at a secret Virtual Reality project: Two threads that lead to a disturbing climax. Statement made for Berlin Film Festival 1994 (Film’s Premiere) This film, co-written with the science fiction novelist Simon Ings, is part of a continuing attempt to create science fiction films that address the current anxieties and obsessions of our society. In a world where the sophistication of technology is accelerating on a logarithmic curve, science fiction is no longer a form of escapism and high fantasy; rather it is a flexible form of contemporary realism. No other genre allows such extreme juxtaposition of human desires with the baroque variety of technical solutions that our society has developed. Increasingly the outer limits of human life, survival, achievement and knowledge are mediated by technology. We come into the world bio-monitored, and we leave in intensive care. In between times our most intense relationships (both with our own bodies and with others we fear or desire) are mediated by technology: Medical tech...Communications Tech... Drugs that alter perception or body state...Emotion and technology are not opposite ends of the spectrum any more; they have collided. As a film-maker whose work has always represented emotion and desire directly through the body, in animated and special FX films, science fiction is a compelling genre for me. It is popular, widely accessible genre where an extra-ordinary number of possibilities collide, and the film-maker has an enormous freedom of representation and varieties of formal complexity. ROSE RED is a narrative primarily about guilt, and the desire to transcend human limits, set in a world where technology has become intimate, and sometimes it is hard to see where our machines end and we begin, or where our dreams end and electronic media begin. |
| Director: Simon Pummell
Screenwriter: Simon Ings, Simon Pummell Director of photography: Gerry Floyd Music: Annabelle Pangborn Cast: Sian Thomas, Douglas Henshall, Carolyn Choa Thomas Shaw Douglas HENSHALL Clare Maravel Sean THOMAS Dr. Lewis Carolyn CHOA Eva Jennifer, CALVERT young Shaw Jamie WHYTE stunt co-ordinator/performer Abbi COLLINS man in tank Rem LEE woman in tank Kirsty ALEXANDER receptionist Beverley CREW Running time: 18 min. Film: 35 mm Distribution: British Film Institute |
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| Douglas Henshall as Thomas Shaw |
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