As part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s ongoing partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival, Monday September 9 marked the second annual Sloan Science and Technology Project Pitch. The non-competitive pitch grants four filmmakers $15k each to develop their project, the opportunity to work with a professional pitch coach, and 15 minutes each to present their work before a panel of industry experts.
Hosted by comedian Carolyn Taylor, the program kicked off with welcome remarks from TIFF Chief Business & Marketing Officer Jennifer Frees and Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Doron Weber. Read more about this year’s artists and their projects below.
PUSH THE BUTTON by Anton Källrot
Anton Källrot kicked off his pitch by posing questions directly to the audience. “Do you feel your phone occupies too much of your time?” Audience members replied with a resounding, “Yes.”
“If you could push a button that would limit the algorithm designed to keep us you addicted to your phones, would you?” Again, audience members replied in the affirmative.
Pitched as if LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was remade by Paul Schrader, Källrot’s feature film seeks to explore the corrosive impact of phone addiction on modern society. It follows a young journalist whose research on tech addiction puts her on the trail of Puck, an enigmatic figure whose anti-technology beliefs have garnered him a cult-like following. However, the question remains: Is Puck’s plan to blow up a server wall an act of radical liberation or merely senseless terrorism?
Källot closed his pitch – which panelists praised for its interactive nature and playful sense of humor – with a clip of Prince’s prescient speech at the 1999 Yahoo Internet Awards. Check it out below.
LUCID by Mia Mullarky
Mia Mullarky’s LUCID draws from her own longstanding interest in psychiatry. The daughter of an arts therapist and a psychotherapist, Mullarky received her bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science and worked as a behavioral psychologist before pivoting to filmmaking. Fascinated by the human mind, she characterized her project as her “ode to consciousness.”
With LUCID, Mullarky hopes to subvert the cinematic trope of the woman created by man, referencing films such as METROPOLIS, POOR THINGS, and EX MACHINA. Drawing from her personal experience, LUCID features a female psychotherapist met with the harrowing possibility that she may not exist, illuminating how constant advancements in artificial intelligence threaten to redefine our understanding of sentience.
Citing works such as SOLARIS, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, INTERSTELLAR, and Frida Kahlo’s painting The Two Fridas, Mullarky is looking to attach a producer while she revises the script. “I will be primarily working with humans on this project,” Mullarky joked in closing.
The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas), Frida Kahlo, 1939. Image courtesy of Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.
LIBERATION by Norman Yi Li
Norman Yi Li’s LIBERATION is an eco-thriller centered around Morgan, a vegan scientist who finds her career stalled by her refusal to participate in animal testing. She is approached by an animal rights activist named Wade who hopes to enlist her in his radical plan: spread the mosquito and tick born Alpha-gal syndrome among the human population. Alpha-gal syndrome has made headlines in recent years, as it causes a severe meat allergy in humans. Though Morgan declines, Wade does manage to recruit her teenage daughter Ash, leading to a devasting sequence of events that puts her entire family in jeopardy.
Li shared his own relationship to the subject matter, noting that while he began work on LIBERATION as a meat lover hoping to satirize radical vegan culture, the project’s tone has shifted along with his eating habits. Startling facts that arose during his research – that livestock supply chains account for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, for instance – have made him a vegetarian.
Initially conceived as a limited series, YI is now reworking LIBERATION into a feature film in the vein of HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE with an aesthetic reminiscent of FIGHT CLUB. Yi concluded his pitch with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote evocative of the project’s ethos: “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
Anton Källrot, Mia Mullarky, Norman Yi Li and Justine Beed on stage at the 2024 TIFF Sloan Science and Technology Project Pitch, September 9, 2024. Photo Credit: Sarah Luciano
LA FORZA by Justine Beed
Finally, multiple Sloan award winner Justine Beed took the stage. Beed’s participation in the pitch marks her fourth recognition from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation over the course of two years. In 2023, she earned the USC Sloan Screenwriting Grant, participated in the Fall Athena Film Festival Fellowship, and won the Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize. In the subsequent months, Beed has worked with industry and science advisors to expand and refine her limited series LA FORZA, not only revising it from a half hour to a one hour format, but building out a detailed three-season arc.
Beed’s LA FORZA tells the story of Laura Bassi, an 18th century physicist who made history by becoming the first female professor in the world to receive her doctorate. After discovering Bassi through a Google doodle, Beed became fascinated by not only Bassi’s history-making achievements but her complicated love story. Bassi’s husband Giuseppe Veratti was also a scientist and fellow lecturer at the University of Bologna, which ultimately led to a sophisticated working and romantic relationship but often put them in competition with one another professionally. LA FORZA promises to tease out this love story like so many of the BBC period dramas that Beed grew up watching.
Beed also cited projects such as THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, ANNIE WITH AN E, and AMADEUS as touchstones for LA FORZA, though her series will have anachronistic touches reminiscent of DICKINSON and THE GREAT.
Panelists were impressed by how much of herself Beed put into the pitch and expressed excitement about diving into the world of 18th Century Bologna on screen.
Read more about the pitch participants here, and stay tuned for updates on these projects as they develop.
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