Central Europe, 2041. With violent crime on the rise, a new technology called Restore Point enables all citizens to be revived from unnatural deaths, so long as they back up their mind’s data at least once every 48 hours. Indefatigable loner detective Em Trochinowska (Andrea Mohylová) investigates the murders of one of the Restore Point Institute’s head scientists, David Kurlstat (Matej Hádek) and his wife Kristina. When Kurlstat turns up alive with a six-month memory gap– tenuously revived through an unstable and illegally outdated back-up– he joins Trochinowska in pursuing her prime suspect for the murders: Viktor Toffer (Milan Ondrík), a hacker with ties to a Luddite terrorist cell with whom Trochinowska herself has a personal score to settle. Upon discovering that Toffer has unleashed a virus capable of wiping out thousands of Restore Point backup data sets, Trochinowska closes in on a deeper conspiracy.
Director Robert Hloz’s impressive sci-fi thriller feature debut explores questions of consciousness in an imaginative and stunningly rendered dystopian cityscape where death has taken on an entirely new meaning.
Hloz’s world-building—in a film that’s a cross between Minority Report and Blade Runner—is gripping.
RogerEbert.com
Series Media Partner
Andrea Mohylová, Matěj Hádek, Václav Neužil, Milan Ondrík, Karel Dobrý
Czech Republic/Slovakia/Poland/Serbia
2023
Altered States
In Czech with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Jan Kallista, Pavel Berčík, Silvie Michajlova, Karla Stojáková, Ondřej Zima
Screenwriter
Tomislav Čečka, Zdeněk Jecelín, Robert Hloz
Cinematography
Filip Marek
Editor
Jarosław Kamiński
Production Design
Ondřej Lipenský
Original Music
Jan Šléška
Director
Robert Hloz
Robert Hloz (1989) is a filmmaker based in Prague, Czech Republic. He studied film directing at the film school in South Korea and FMK UTB in Zlín, Czech Republic. His early short film The Mill won Kodak Student Gold Award 2011 as the best short film of a year. Numbers was nominated for Czech Academy Award. In 2015, he directed Liars, a short film about a group of boys that hide the discovery of a dead body. In 2020 he won the Straight 8 section in Cannes with his last short film Crumbs.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Tokyo Taxi
An overworked taxi driver takes 85-year-old Madame Sumire on a final journey through Tokyo, revisiting the places that shaped her life. Yoji Yamada’s 91st film is a moving, heartwarming love letter to Tokyo, nominated for nine Japanese Academy Awards.
KAKU KAKU SHIKA JIKA fka Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey
Adapted from acclaimed manga artist Akiko Higashimura’s autobiographical manga is a funny and sharply observed coming-of-age story about the creative awakening of a master of manga.
A Sad and Beautiful World
This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.
Blue Boy Trial
Transgender filmmaker Kasho Iizuka revisits 1960s Japan and the sensational “Blue Boy Trial,” sparked by the arrest of a doctor performing sex reassignment surgeries. With trans actors in central roles, the film powerfully illuminates buried history, identity, dignity, and resilience.
Aruku - I Walk
This meditative documentary, captures the stories of four contemporary pilgrims on the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage as they follow in the footsteps of master Kūkai, the monk who shaped Japanese Buddhism. Each is burdened, in different ways, by exhaustion, solitude, or quiet disillusionment.