The Abjurants

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The Abjurants (Le abiuratrici)

original title:

Le abiuratrici

directed by:

cinematography:

set design:

costume design:

production:

Assedio Film, Inthelfilm, with the support of Regione Lazio, Apulia Film Commission

country:

Italy

year:

2019

film run:

15'

format:

2K - colour

aspect ratio:

2.39:1

status:

Ready (20/10/2019)

festivals & awards:

2087. Since over 30 years the Government of the Confederation of the Autonomous States of Eurasia adopted a Eugenics Programme, titled “EUGENE 51”, aiming to eliminate “human illnesses”. The specific objective of the programme is to extinguish the costs of defensive medicine while incrementing financial resources available for preventive medicine to create “hyper positive” or perfect human beings.
Vera and Roberta are two “irreversible Abjurants”, meaning women with a positive predisposition and indeed suitable to the procreation of hyper-positive human beings within the “EUGENE 51” programme, but who decided not to adhere to it because they are in love with two men who are instead considered “negative subjects”.
Vera and Roberta are confined in a booth within an institute in an unknown location within the “Mediterranean District” of the Confederation of the Autonomous States of Eurasia; nonetheless they have been subjected to experimentation and made partially blind by the treatment and they spend their days hoping to recall to mind the memories of their lovers’ facets. This is their only life purpose: safeguarding the meaning of their own lives, of their own existence.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES:
The film triggers a reflection on the theme of “Eugenics” – a discipline that suggested the improvement of the human species through the same scientific methods used for the selection of animals and plants. Through history the adoption of eugenics’ ideas within politics generated dangerous activities aiming at the reproduction of positive human beings and consequently to the elimination of those subjects considered negative or undesirable (i.e. the programme titled “AKTION T4” practiced by Germany during the Nazi Regime).
The desire to apply and ideologically pursue “perfection” is to not be confined to the realm of human history but to be embedded in the current socio-cultural context. Scientific developments within contemporary society characterised by egoistic attitudes brought back up the theme of “Eugenics” theories, consequently highlighting the ethical argument between applying scientific discoveries and projecting the myth of “perfection”. The film positions itself within this ethical debate focusing on that subtle red line where man’s actions diminish his human condition.