While science-fiction is usually associated with flashy VFX, aliens, spaceships, and advanced technology, the genre is incredibly varied and nuanced, and beloved by many as a means to explore complex themes, and broach existential concerns. It has also — since its beginnings — always been shaped by female creators, even where their contributions may have been trivialized or overlooked.
This month’s VOD and web series picks are illustrative of the realm of high-concept possibilities of sci-fi as crafted by women, even when low-budget. Narrative features “Imitation Girl,” and “Movement and Location” invoke alien lifeforms and time travel, respectively, as metaphors for immigration, while simultaneously tackling identity issues.
Meanwhile, web series “Here We Wait” is a female-driven drama that takes place in purgatory, chronicling the workplace relationships between its permanent residents who usher the dead to their final destination.
Here are our VOD and web series selections for May.
VOD
“Imitation Girl” – Written and Directed by Natasha Kermani
When a piece of alien goo lands in the New Mexico desert, the first thing it comes across is an adult entertainment magazine, the cover featuring porn star Julianna (Lauren Ashley Carter), and so the alien imitates her appearance, and begins to traverse the desert in her petite form. Eventually she is taken in by Saghi (Neimah Djourabchi) and his sister Khahar (Sanam Erfani), who are bemused by the Imitation’s unusual behavior and social awkwardness. When flipping through TV channels, the Imitation discovers the woman she copied herself after and begins to seek her out. Meanwhile, in New York City, Julianna herself is stuck in an apathetic daze, bored by her work and her life of drugs and partying, but unsure of how to leave it, and totally unaware of her doppelgänger across the country.
“At the core of the film is the idea of exploring two halves of the same person, and that we all carry duality within ourselves, a yin and a yang that we’re always trying to balance,” explained writer-director Natasha Kermani in an interview. “I’ve also always been fascinated by the idea of how women are ‘seen’ — and the film is, in many ways, the image of a woman that takes on a life of its own, so she ultimately comes face-to-face with a version of herself.”
It’s a concept that is not new to science-fiction — take “Annihilation” as a recent example — but coming from a female creator it feels even more potent. And while aliens-as-metaphor for immigrants is certainly not a new concept either, the film goes beyond that, and explores the outsider status through all of its main characters — Julianna, numb to life, and isolated from main society by her industry and lifestyle, Saghi and Khahar, the Iranian siblings who are first-generation immigrants in the U.S., and the Imitation itself, a curious, and full-of-wonder being flung out of space.
This intimate exploration of identity, and what it means to be human, is available to watch on Vimeo, iTunes, Amazon, and elsewhere.
“Movement and Location” – Written by Bodine Boling
Kim (writer Bodine Boling, also pulling editing and producing duties) works a full-time job for a homeless outreach program, shares an apartment in Brooklyn with roommate, Amber, and otherwise lives a low key, closed-off existence, often appearing socially awkward to others. That is because Kim is from 400 years in the future, and is still thrown off by the pace of life, common idioms, and basic luxuries of the present day. She’s a refugee from her own time period, having taken a one-way ticket to escape whatever horrors exist there.
“I didn’t have the budget for special effects and stuff, and I think when you can’t see the monster and you’re forced to imagine the monster, the monster is so much scarier,” explained Boling of the decision to not show where — or when — Kim has travelled from. “What could the future be like that coming back 400 years and being dropped there, no identity, having to completely fend for yourself — that’s the alternative that you not only wanted, but paid for?”
Boling and her husband, the film’s director, Alexis Boling, consider the film to be what they call “casual science fiction,” because it is devoid of special effects, and uses time travel only to contextualize. Instead, the film uses Kim’s fish-out-of-water experience, and the discovery of a fellow time-traveller — 15-year-old Rachel (Catherine Missal) — to explore the difficulty of living an emotionally honest existence. Rachel’s appearance makes it increasingly difficult for Kim to keep her secret, as the naive, optimistic teenager is keen to share what they know with the world, and perhaps warn of the future traumas that await mankind.
Exploring loss of identity, and the lengths that a good person will go to in order to survive, the film was crowdfunded via Seed&Spark, and is now available to watch via iTunes, Amazon, Vimeo, and elsewhere.
Web Series
“Here We Wait” – Created and Written by Olivia Baptista and Diane Chen; Directed by Bea Macapagal
Ostensibly a workplace drama with a genre twist, and drawing inspiration from sources as wide-ranging as “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “Ophan Black,” the cleverly titled “Here We Wait” focuses on the interactions between the waitstaff of a very unique location: purgatory, also known as a restaurant called “Here.” Its permanent inhabitants are from different time periods, mostly women — Siv, Thalia (co-creator/writer Diane Chen), Rachel, Kylie (co-creator/writer Olivia Baptista), Andie, and Charlie. Alongside male staff Jake, Pietro, and Kylie’s illicitly retained companion “Boy,” their job is to serve their “patrons” one last meal before seeing them on their way to their final destination — either Heaven or Hell equivalents “There” or “Somewhere,” depending on how well the staff do their job. But something — or someone — is causing an imbalance in the system, and with divine boss Gideon appearing at will to breathe down their necks, the team is keen to find out why so many of their patrons are being sent to Somewhere.
The series begins in media res, and much of the first episode is preoccupied with introducing the characters without explaining too much of what is going on — the show confidently knows that the intriguing premise and complex character dynamics are reason enough for viewers to keep watching, rewarding those who stay focused with clues that later pay off. Explaining their motivation to make the series, Baptista said: “It’s a high-concept show that we tried to accomplish in a low-budget setting, which is a really fun challenge. We wanted sci-fi, we wanted female-driven, and we wanted character-driven more than story-driven.”
With 20 episodes available to watch on YouTube, and an enticing proof-of-concept pilot that was shot to attract investors, there’s certainly plenty of material for fans of female-driven sci-fi-mystery to gorge on.
