One of the most striking films to play in New York Film Festival’s Currents section this year is John Torres sci-fi-tinged neo-noir The Remotes, which follows a grieving detective who investigates two sisters linked to a sinister navigation app, only to find himself slowly surrendering to the unseen voices controlling the city and his own lingering sorrow. Following its U.S. premiere, we’re pleased to exclusively unveil the first trailer.
Here’s the NYFF synopsis: “Manila-based filmmaker, musician, and artist John Torres has constructed an original, visually striking form of neo-noir that combines sci-fi and documentary into a new kind of stylistic blueprint. Following a cop in mourning one year after his wife was killed in a mysterious driver-app-related auto accident, and his telepathic sister-in-law, whose recorded voice might hold a clue to the case, The Remotes is a thought-provoking inquiry into the larger forces—political, technological—that conspire to control our bodies and identities. Fashioned in part as a response to the Philippines’ longtime president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” and the country’s resultant surveillance state, Torres’s drifting, impressionistic film expands and compresses time, allowing its sinister, tragic narrative to gradually emerge from its moody, fog-enshrouded cityscape.”
Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “It’s no wonder that the film I most thought of was David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Between The Remotes‘ darkly surreal noir mystery and the unnaturally cyclical nature of its visuals and sound, you wouldn’t need to twist my arm to make me believe everything onscreen is a dream. It’s not—Mijares isn’t the only one desperate for solace—but that doesn’t mean most is. Call it coincidence, fate, or delusion; nothing should be taken at face value.”
“The Remotes is about how longing can become infrastructure,” said the director. “How grief stifles us while technology listens in and automates our choices in life. This is a world where people willingly surrender to it because it brings them closer to someone they lost, or someone they used to be.”
See the exclusive trailer premiere below.
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