Anchorage_ - short film

Written and directed by Oliver Bridges of Keystone Productions, and previously of the bold archival documentary 'The Electronic Kidney', Anchorage is an upcoming short film production about grief, nostalgia and artificial remembrance; a nuanced and topical take on the dangers of technological advancement and the power emotion has in our motives.

Together, these themes provide for a fascinating enquiry into the mind of someone in pain, whilst a cure, albeit inauthentic, sits behind the monitor in front of them. The tone is simple: haunting, sombre, but never melodramatic. Similar in approach to Haigh's All of Us Strangers; an eerily nostalgic exploration of memory and grief.

We're asking for £800 in order to achieve this exciting new project which will be spent on the payment of actors, on the creation of a function website, on film equipment, and on food or other varieties of cast and crew welfare.

Logline - A young man reconnects with his late mother through deep-fake software, but as he reminisces, his memories become somewhat confessional, and have a haunting impact on the face he communicates with.

Writer / director: Oliver Bridges

Producers: Harry J. Wormald & Ethan Bloor

DoP: Matthew Cooke

Gaffer / lighting technician: Jonah Prisk

Anchorage_ will embody the increasingly-popular "screenlife" film. It will take hybrid filmmaking to ensure that Rufus' story of nostalgia and sentiment is fully realised onscreen. Graphic Designers, as well as site-designers, will be key in building the cyberspace that the majority of the film takes place on; a home for our themes and narrative. The fictional website Faux-Face.com is where Rufus will be communicating with the simulation of his Mother, and this will be built by expert online-craftspeople.

Director's statement

It is not unrealistic to imagine a world where the mind cannot differentiate between what is natural, and what is cyber. Anchorage_ is speculative, but not fanciful. Deepfake software can be, and is, used as a weapon against the brains that conceived it. Pornography is illegally crafted, words are placed into politicians' mouths... but Rufus, our protagonist, uses deepfake software in a far less malicious, and far more endearing manner - he engineers a simulation of his late mother. The concept came about in early 2024; my own mother had just passed, and I had so much to say to her. Five minutes alone with her still body was not enough to fit the enormity of my compassion and appreciation for how I was raised; I was a boy with a chronically sick mum who never acted like she was sick.

As is with any creative endeavour, the artist puts themself into their work, and it's explicit where my inspiration for Anchorage_ lies. But, I connect with Rufus’ psyche on more than a mournful level, for I've entertained the idea of using deepfake software - I wanted to know if it would work, and, at the forefront of my justification for contemplating A.I, I wanted to speak with her again. Despite my curiosity, logic overruled; A.I is the enemy of the human spirit, and my script highlights that - it's a machine; emotionless and hard-bearing, ruthless and toxic. Anchorage_ is about being human in a physical cyberspace. It explores memory in two avenues: the digital, or the risk of holding one's memories on a digital cloud; one that could evaporate at any point... and with it our entire life's worth of remembrance, and the sentimental – how one’s memories of another evolve and mould themselves over time. It is also, as the definition of the term suggests, about the unbearable concept of letting go. The not uncommon habit of entering sickly territory to remember someone, or something, is ‘Anchorage’... for even placing the fragile legacy of your loved ones in the hands of digital, identity-stealing software is not reckless on the moral compass of someone in pain. Ultimately, Anchorage_ is a sentimental, desperate, and complex exploration of nostalgia in an ever-evolving digital age

- Oliver Bridges, writer / director