ARRIVING IN 2020
CORY McABEE
writer/director
Cory McAbee is best known as writer, director, songwriter and co-composer for the award-winning feature films, The American Astronaut (2001), Stingray Sam (2009), Crazy and Thief (2012) and as singer/songwriter for the internationally acclaimed musical group The Billy Nayer Show (1989–2011). He has created award-winning animated and live-action short films and has worked as both an actor and musician in American and European features. In January of 2015 McAbee recorded and produced his first solo album titled, Small Star Seminar (available on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and more.) Music from this album has been used to develop the globally generated feature film Deep Astronomy and the Romantic Sciences. In 2017 McAbee developed a live performance titled Deep Astronomy and the Romantic Sciences for the purpose of live entertainment and as events to be documented by collaborators for use in the feature film of the same name. McAbee is the writer, director and musical composer for this feature as well as one of the lead actors and producers.
In a crowded nightclub a mysterious looking woman sits alone at a table sipping from an empty glass. Her movements are mechanical. She is a robot incognito. Her name is Grace.
Conspiring near a wall, a group of young partygoers coax a member of their party, a young man named Rudy, into speaking with the unusual woman sitting alone. In an attempt to amuse his friends Rudy approaches Grace and begins a conversation. The conversation quickly becomes personal as Rudy discovers her primary function, to represent humanity based on a generalization created from all social media and wireless communications. To verify her calculations Grace needs to participate in an unprepared conversation with a wireless communicator, after which she will be shot into space as the immortal spokesperson of humanity. Rudy is put on trial for the superficiality of his times. To defend himself he must first prove to himself that Grace is wrong.
Grace is more informative than inquisitive. She draws Rudy into a conversation by explaining the history of the Romantic Sciences, a field in which she is both an expert and a product. Her stories are focused on lectures and performances given by various Romantic Scientists as she explains their theories and the trajectory of their careers. While highlighting such topics as time-travel, multiple dimensions, the colonization of other planets and human waste disposal she is able to address ideas such as truth vs. facts, the real vs. the imagined, and what it means to be human.
This project has been developed in part through the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier Story Lab. Events have been featured and documented at the New York Film Festival, Reykjavik International Film Festival, 36th Stage Songs Review (Wroclaw, Poland), Séance Magazine Festival (Saint Petersburg, RU), Unknown Pleasures Festival (Berlin), Marfa Film Festival (TX), and at theaters, museums, galleries, night clubs, pubs and universities throughout the world.