Telling The Bees - Graduation Short Film

Would you like to help us with our project 'Telling The Bees' and assist us in graduating at the same time? Please take a look at the video above.

Arturo Navarro Villacampa and Peter John Cutajar are both filmmakers who are graduating from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.

They have co-written a 20-minute story about an AI trainer who is hired to create an AI based on an old friend. This process forces him to confront his past in a way he doesn't expect.

THE STORY

Ezra has a business in which he creates and sells custom companion AI chatbots, usually of women, for lonely men. His life is comfortable until he receives an unusual request from a grieving mother; she asks Ezra to recreate her son, Lukas, Ezra's long-time friend, who committed suicide a year prior.

Ezra takes on the project and begins to work. As he looks back at Lukas' life, he slowly and accurately rebuilds him, reliving their relationship. As the AI ​​develops and grows, it comes closer and closer to the age at which Lukas passed away. Suddenly, Ezra is faced with a question: if the AI ​​is accurate, will it also take its own life? Was Lukas' death preventable? Is this Ezra's second chance to save Lukas? Is it his place to try? Would it ultimately change anything, or is it too late again ?

MOTIVATION & GOAL

Our crew found each other through a shared concern about the way we handle care and grief in our modern age. Even now, with the growing attention to mental health, the world moves fast and unforgivingly, and human connection takes a back seat.

At the same time, our pursuit of "self-help" solutions seems to create a bigger and bigger gap between each other. We all suffer from the same problems, but we've convinced ourselves we need to deal with it alone...

Acts of desperation do not exist in a bubble. Each one is a mix of lifetimes and experiences, and when we consider them taboo and dismiss them, we ensure we never learn from the past. Your donation would allow us to tell this story with the nuance and production value that it needs.

We want to encourage our audience to reflect on the essence of being human and how we can better care for ourselves and those around us.

WHO ARE WE?

Arturo Navarro Villacampa is a Spanish Filmmaker based in The Hague and Rotterdam. He is in his final year of Audiovisual Design at the Willem de Kooning Academy. His multicultural background has allowed him to develop a careful eye for speculative fiction and cautionary tales with great success. In recent years, his past works in sci-fi have encouraged him to look at the human element that lies within.

Peter John Cutajar is an experienced Maltese Filmmaker & Sound Designer based in Rotterdam. He is in his final year at the Audiovisual Design department at the Willem de Kooning Academy, where he will be graduating as a filmmaker. He previously worked with Maltese productions and is inspired by stories that highlight cultural and nuanced issues.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Help us realize our vision! Your donations would go to funding travel arrangements, catering on set, compensating our cast and crew, renting professional filming equipment, and more.

LET'S GET IN TOUCH!

If you want to help us in this film in any way possible feel free to reach out to us!

Email:
[email protected]
[email protected]

Previous works:
Peter John Cutajar
Arturo Navarro Villacampa