North American Premiere

In-Person Only

Human Within

Directed by:

Avi Winkler, Anne Weigel

Country:

Canada

Germany

Runtime:

02:00:00

Cyber Engineer, Nyla, and her sister, Linh, have developed a way to harness the immense processing power of the human brain to create the ultimate supercomputer. Employed by Forward Industries, they managed to transfer human consciousness to the digital space. But when Nyla threatened to back out of the project, things took an unexpected turn. Now they are being held against their will, forced to finish what they started. Convinced their employer intends to use the tech for nefarious means, they do the unthinkable to prevent it. Cut off from the outside world, Nyla connects Linh to the device and uses its unmatched network connectivity to orchestrate a daring escape. A plan that forces Nyla to use the technology in the very way she feared it would be.

Directors:

Anne Wiegel

Born in Berlin, raised in the city's music scene, Anne stumbled upon a film set by accident. Not long after, she enjoyed the privilege of working as a director on various projects around the world for more than fifteen years. Her narrative work has been screened at international film festivals, aired on German national television, and received several awards, including Best International Debut at NRFF London. The documentary "The Silent Invasion," which explores invasive species in the Mediterranean Sea, recently won the 2023 Diario Vasco Award for Best Journalistic Work. Anne is currently working on long-format projects including Human Within, an international sci-fi VR feature film about Brain-Computer Interfaces, as well as a diving expedition documentary in India. Anne's heart beats for everything that makes us human — especially stories that revolve around the urge to explore, question the norm, and understand the unknown. With several engineering degrees under her belt, she finds great joy in combining science and art in her work. Her focus in research is on Robotics, Human-Machine Interaction and Cognitive Modelling.

Avi Winkler

Avi has a venerated career in interactive entertainment leading teams in both Design and Narrative. In the last ten years, Avi has focused on non-linear storytelling, creating multi-dimensional characters, and writing scripts for cinematics, video games and everything in between. For video games such as Gears 5, he helped break the Gears of War franchise out of its linear centric mould. Prior to that, he worked on various other AAA console games, such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Thief, and Far Cry 3. At Signal Space, he has been leading the studio's creative and narrative department since early 2020, breaking new ground in storytelling with immersive and interactive projects such as Human Within.