Warner Bros. buys the rights to sci-fi short Sundays, leaves rest of week intact

/Film is reporting that Warner Bros. has snapped up the feature film rights to Sundays, a dystopian video short from director Mischa Rozema. The project was years in the making, and was crowdfunded through Kickstarter as a way to pitch the concept to larger studios. Nearly three years and $51,000 later, the results are nightmarish, but in a good way.

Imagine a worker sentenced to a daily commute through burned-out urban hellscapes under the watchful eye of ubiquitous sentry cameras. Having made his trek, the poor soul is doomed to play the part of a sad and unfulfilled cog in the gears of industry. Meanwhile, the man suspects that this can’t possibly be all he is meant for, and is consumed by sepia-toned memories of a lover who may have been erased. Surely his lowly position must be the result of some shadowy influence striving to keep him in his place, producing and consuming without question.

Basically, it’s the plight of most tuition-debt saddled thirtysomethings who live in any major U.S. metropolitan area, although Rozema throws in some paramilitary drones and droids to remind us that this is a fictional story. As the narrator delivers a stoner’s condemnation of reality—“what if the things you know are a made up story?”—a vision of the future unfolds that is equal parts The Matrix, Inception, District 9, Gattica, THX 1138, and a recruitment video for entry-level opportunities at TelAmeriCorp.