Simon Pummell – Brand New-U #CFF60

November 11, 2015

Simon Pummell - Brand New-U #CFF60 fredfilmradio

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Simon Pummell – director – Brand New-U

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews Simon Pummell, director of the film BRAND NEW-U, which had its Irish premiere at the 60th edition of the Cork Film Festival.

Simon talks to us about where the inspiration for the story came from, and how he adapted its very real and current themes of identity crisis, dopplegangers and paranoia within the science fiction genre.

The film looks amazing, thanks to some excellent effects, and despite the fact that BRAND NEW-U did not benefit from the large scale budget of other similar works. We talk how the stunning visual work was achieved, but also how he managed to not let the film be overtaken by it, retaining lots of substance in a story that seeks open interaction with its viewers and aims to be immersive with its meticulous pace and intense atmosphere.

BRAND NEW-U: The organisation BRAND NEW-U identifies networks of Identicals – “people who walk like you, talk like you, but are walking through different, better lives” – and helps their customers make a life upgrade: eliminating the Better-Life donor, and relocating their client to that Brand New life. But errors can occur, and a Brand New life can cost more than expected.

Brand New-U follows Slater as he is forced to move through a series of parallel lives. He becomes more and more obsessed as he tries to find the lover he lost, but what he must find in the end is himself. BRAND NEW-U takes elements of science-fiction movies and thrillers, strips them down, and re-mixes them into a looping dream-logic to create a contemporary allegory of our search for identity and human connection in our rootless, media-saturated worlds.

Written by: fredfilmradio

Matt Micucci

Guest

Simon Pummell

Film

Brand New-U

Festival

Cork Film Festival

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