Serendipity Point Films Telefilm Canada Ingenious Media
Present
A Film by David Cronenberg A Robert Lantos Production
Produced in association with Argonauts Productions S.A. Crave
CBC Films
ERT
Rocket Science
with the participation of EKOME
The Greek Film Center Ontario Creates
Crimes of the Future is a Canada-Hellenic Republic Co-Production and was filmed on location in Athens, Greece.
Crimes of the Future is distributed by NEON in the U.S., Metropolitan Filmexport in France, Weltkino in Germany, MK2 | MILE END in Canada, The Searchers in Belgium, Capella in Russia, Argonauts in Greece, Movie Cloud in Taiwan, and Front Row in the Middle East. Rocket Science is handling international sales.
Synopsis :In a not-so-distant future, humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. Their biological makeup changed, many humans have adapted to life with “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome” thanks partly to specialized equipment that aids in everything from eating to sleeping.
Beloved performance artist Saul Tenser sleeps in a womb-like bed suspended in mid-air. The OrchidBed, as it’s called, comes complete with software to anticipate, and adjust his every bodily need. The machine even detects the growth of new organs, which Saul’s creative partner Caprice can observe and tattoo in his personal operating theatre. Together, Saul and Caprice have turned the discovery and removal of these new body organs into performance art, via sold-out voyeuristic surgical shows using a sarcophagus-like machine where the surgeries take place.
These human evolutionary changes do not receive universal positivity. Before long, a new secret government entity is established – the National Organ Registry, led by bureaucrats Wippet and Timlin – to discreetly track new organ growths, with particular enthusiasm for Saul’s artistic anomalies. With increased scrutiny on the syndrome and therefore his art, Saul is forced to consider what would be his most shocking performance of all.
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY
David Cronenberg
CAST
Viggo Mortensen (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, Green Book)
Léa Seydoux (No Time to Die, The French Dispatch, Blue is the Warmest Colour) Kristen Stewart (Spencer, Clouds of Sils Maria, Twilight)
Scott Speedman (Grey’s Anatomy, Barney’s Version, Adoration, Underworld) Welket Bungué (Berlin Alexanderplatz)
Don McKellar (Blindness, eXistenZ)
Yorgos Pirpassopoulos (Beckett, Monday)
Tanaya Beatty (Yellowstone, Through Black Spruce)
Nadia Litz (Big Muddy, Hotel Congress, Blindness)
Lihi Kornowski (Losing Alice)
Denise Capezza (Gomorrah)
PRODUCED BY
Robert Lantos
MUSIC BY
Howard Shore
PRODUCERS
Panos Papahadzis Steve Solomos
CO-PRODUCER
Laura Lanktree
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Bonnie Do
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Joe Iacono
Aida Tannyan Peter Touche Christelle Conan Tom Quinn
Jeff Deutchman Christian Parkes Thorsten Schumacher
CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Victor Hadida Victor Loewy Charles Tremblay Ariane Giroux-Dallaire
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Douglas Koch, CSC
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
Carol Spier
EDITOR
Christopher Donaldson, C.C.E.
COSTUME DESIGNER
Mayou Trikerioti
CASTING BY
Deirdre Bowen
Director’s Statement
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is a meditation on human evolution.
Specifically – the ways in which we have had to take control of the process because we have created such powerful environments that did not exist previously.
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is an evolution of things I have done before. Fans will see key references to other scenes and moments from my other films. That’s a continuity of my understanding of technology as connected to the human body.
Technology is always an extension of the human body, even when it seems to be very mechanical and non- human. A fist becomes enhanced by a club or a stone that you throw – but ultimately, that club or stone is an extension of some potency that the human body already has.
At this critical junction in human history, one wonders – can the human body evolve to solve problems we have created? Can the human body evolve a process to digest plastics and artificial materials not only as part of a solution to the climate crisis, but also, to grow, thrive, and survive?
~ David Cronenberg