
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 When Kurlstat turns up alive with a six-month memory gap– tenuously revived through an unstable and illegally outdated back-up– he joins Trochinowska in pursuing her prime suspect for the murders: Viktor Toffer (Milan Ondrík), a hacker with ties to a Luddite terrorist cell with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
Giant
This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.
Familiar Touch
A loving portrait of an octogenarian transitioning into an assisted living facility, this award-winning first feature by choreographer Sarah Friedland has a simplicity and warmth that's exceptionally poignant.
Super Happy Forever
This beguiling film depicts a man’s return to the Japanese seaside town where he met his now-deceased wife five years earlier. He tries to relive the past, and in the film's final section -- a flashback to 2018 -- the audience is afforded that privilege.
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."