Official selection
Sundance Film Festival 2023
Taormina Film Festival 2023
Director
Eddie Alcazar
Executive Producer
Steven Soderbergh
Producer
Eddie Alcazar, James Allen, Raphael Gindre, Johnny Starke
Writer
Eddie Alcazar
Cast
Moises Arias, Scott Bakula, Caylee Cowan, Stephen Dorff, Jason Genao, Michael O'Hearn, Bella Thorne, Karrueche Tran, Emily Willis
Cinematographer
Danny Hiele
Composer
Dean Hurley, DJ Muggs
Editor
Steve Forner, Kevin Greutert
Special Effects
Matt Falletta, Kao Miyamoto
contact
UTOPIA
In a barren future wasteland — the ruins of California, perhaps? — Jaxxon Pierce (Stephen Dorff, CECIL B. DEMENTED) has attained immortality, both literal and figurative. Following in his father’s footsteps, the pharmaceutical mogul has dedicated his life to the furthering and commercialization of Divinity, a civilization-altering substance that grants its jacked, meat-headed users eternal youth — to devastating effects for humanity. Yet, Faustian bargains come at a great price and the hourglass has run out of sand. A mysterious, seductive woman penetrates the madman’s fortress and two cosmic brothers descend from the heavens to abduct Jaxxon. The time of reckoning has come.
Produced and presented by Steve Soderbergh, Eddie Alcazar’s sophomore creation (following PERFECT and short films THE VANDAL and FUCKKKYOUUU) is a stunningly stylized, mind-melting head-trip in the pure, rarefied Midnight Movie tradition (think genre staples such as ERASERHEAD and TETSUO: THE IRON MAN). Nasty, brutish, sexy, and shiny in equal measures, DIVINITY offers a stunning retro-futuristic vision of humanity in which our worst — vanity, hedonism, greed, CEOs — has become a glorified aesthetic pursuit, a goal in itself. Cautionary tale or zeitgeist-tapping delirium? Some experiences requires leaving all inhibitions at the door in favour of purely sensual pleasures, and this is one of them: a parade of polished and grotesque bodies colliding in gorgeous B&W, underpinned by expert art direction, expressive CGI and prosthetic effects (look out for a show-stopping, arcade-inspired stop-motion sequence). Like an OUTER LIMITS from the future beamed directly to a brain sitting in a glass jar on the shelf of a spaceship to Planet B, DIVINITY is a cult classic in the making. – Ariel Esteban Cayer
Showings
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