While Some Must Sleep

Short Film, 19:59 minutes, 2024

Director and Writer: Craig Urquhart

Producer: Paul Battle

Cast: Jamie Horan, "Elliott"​

​

​Elliot decides to erase his past,
but changes his mind when
it's going to cost him his best friend.

 

Synopsis

Elliot decides to erase all memory of Liz, his ex, using Lemosyne Ltd’s AI-based memory reconfiguration service. He discovers too late that Tom, his Personal Counselor AI and best friend, has to be erased for the process to complete. Elliot fights the process to save Tom's life, but in the end, Tom decides that he can’t watch Elliot suffer, just to save his own existence. Much later, Elliot has woken into a new life, but when he goes on a date, it’s with his ex.

 

Inspiration

Especially after a global pandemic, depression, isolation and loneliness are wrecking lives. Medical technology tries to defeat these problems, but at what price? We rely on friends for support, but what does friendship mean? Relationships are the most human things about us, but these often extend to more than just human companions - we have complicated feelings for pets and animals, and even for plants, objects and abstract ideas. The most complex relationships we have are with ourselves, and our own memories.  We often avoid our traumas, and sometimes we deal with them, but whatever the result, our memories make us who we are. What becomes of us, and our relationships, when we curate our memories? The place where all these questions meet is where action and empathy collide.