Neon announced on Monday that 2073, the new genre-bending documentary from Oscar winner Asif Kapadia (Amy), will be released in select U.S. theaters on December 27th. The studio also unveiled a new trailer, which you can view above.
Starring Samantha Morton (The Serpent Queen) and Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice), 2073 is inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 featurette La Jetée about a time traveler who risks his life to change the course of history and save the future of humanity.
In the film, it’s the year 2073, and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam the wrecked streets, while survivors hide away underground, struggling to remember a free and hopeful existence. A blend of science fiction and speculative nonfiction, the film transports us to a future foreshadowed by the terrifying realities of our present moment. Morton plays a survivor besieged by nightmare visions of the past — a past that happens to be our present, visualized through contemporary footage interconnecting today’s global crises of authoritarianism, unchecked big tech, inequality, and global climate change.
World premiering at the Venice Film Festival, the film has also held screenings at the BFI London Film Festival, Sitges, and others. Upcoming, it’ll be seen at the IDFA and DOCNYC film festivals.
Kapadia and Tony Grisoni penned the script, with Kapadia and George Chignell producing for Lafcadia Productions. Exec producers are Tom Quinn and Dan O’Meara for Neon, Emily Thomas, Dana O’Keefe, Emily Selinger, Ollie Madden, Farhana Bhula, Nicole Stott for Concordia Studio, Chris King, Eric Sloss, and John Sloss. Double Agent, Neon, and Film4 also executive produced and co-financed the project.
A consistent champion of documentaries, Neon’s recent and upcoming efforts in that domain, which they also produced, include Andrew McCarthy’s Brats, Jazmin Jones’ Seeking Mavis Beacon, Oscar nom Raoul Peck’s Orwell, and Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Neon is also handling sales on the political documentary Men of War from filmmakers Billy Corben and Jen Gatien.