1631 – Star Trek: Picard (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: year 2399. various locations

Star Trek: Picard is an American web television series featuring the character Jean-Luc Picard, created for CBS All Access by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, and Alex Kurtzman. It is the eighth series in the Star Trek franchise, and was launched in 2020 as part of Kurtzman’s expansion of the franchise. Picard begins 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and sees a retired Picard deeply affected by the death of Data in that film as well as the destruction of the planet Romulus in the film Star Trek (2009).

Patrick Stewart executive produces the series and stars as Picard, reprising his role from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as other Star Trek media. Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, and Harry Treadaway also star. The series was designed to be slower and more character-focused than previous series in the franchise. (wiki)

imdb   /  Tie-in media

1623 – Raised by Wolves (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: 22nd century. two androids — Father and Mother — are tasked with raising human children on Kepler-22b after the Earth was destroyed by a great war.

Raised by Wolves is an American science fiction drama television series created by Aaron Guzikowski that premiered on HBO Max on September 3, 2020. The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, who also serves as an executive producer for the show. In September 2020, the series was renewed for a second season. (wiki)

Scott responded to a question about the link between Alien and Raised By Wolves during a Reddit Ask Me Anything: “Interesting question but, no, the first Alien story feels like it may be some time before Raised By Wolves, in that the Nostromo was probably financed by an organized global economy. Wolves is about post-global war chaos.” (newsweek)

imdb   /   Podcast

1613 – LX 2048 (2020)

timespace coordinates: the near future: the sun has become so toxic people can no longer leave their houses in daytime, and normal life is conducted mostly inside the virtual realm. a dying man seeks to ensure the future well-being of his family, while coping with what it means to be human in this new reality. Director: Guy Moshe

imdb   /   rt   /   m

1605 – The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s/2010’s San Francisco ( Bayview-Hunters Point, Fillmore District)

The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a 2019 American drama film. Its plot centers on the efforts of a young Black man to reclaim his childhood home, a now-expensive Victorian house in a gentrified neighborhood of San Francisco.

The film is the feature debut of director and producer Joe Talbot. Talbot wrote the screenplay with Rob Richert and the story with Jimmie Fails, on whose life the film is partly based. The movie stars Fails, Jonathan Majors, Tichina Arnold, Rob Morgan, Mike Epps, Finn Wittrock, and Danny Glover.  (wiki)

Kickstarter-funded, feat Michael Nyman OST.

imdb

1595 – Fallen Angels (1995)

timespace coordinates: 1995 urban, nighttime Hong Kong

Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung, and Karen Mok. As with the filmmaker’s other features, plot takes a back seat to mood.

Originally conceived by Wong as the third story for 1994’s Chungking Express, it was cut after he decided that it was complete without it. He instead decided to develop the story further into its own feature film and borrowed elements of Chungking Express, such as themes, locations and methods of filming. Wanting to also try to differentiate it from Chungking and to try something new, Wong decided along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle to shoot mainly at night and using extreme wide-angle lenses, keeping the camera as close to the talents as possible to give a detached effect from the world around them.

In an interview, Wong had this to say:

…To me, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels are one film that should be three hours long. I always think these two films should be seen together as a double bill. In fact, people asked me during an interview for Chungking Express: “You’ve made these two stories which have no relationship at all to each other, how can you connect them?” And I said, ‘The main characters of Chungking Express are not Faye Wong or Takeshi Kaneshiro, but the city itself, the night and day of Hong Kong. Chungking Express and Fallen Angels together are the bright and dark of Hong Kong.” I see the films as inter-reversible, the character of Faye Wong could be the character of Takeshi in Fallen Angels; Brigitte Lin in Chungking could be Leon Lai in Fallen Angels. All of their characters are inter-reversible. Also, in Chungking we were shooting from a very long distance with long lenses, but the characters seem close to us.

In the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote:

The acme of neo-new-wavism, the ultimate in MTV alienation, the most visually voluptuous flick of the fin de siècle, a pyrotechnical wonder about mystery, solitude, and the irrational love of movies that pushes Wong’s style to the brink of self-parody.

wiki   /   imdb   /   rottentomatoes

1586 – Before the Fire (2020)

spacetime coordinates: 2020. family farms near the small towns of Delmont and Letcher, South Dakota.

Before the Fire is a pandemic thriller directed by Charlie Buhler. The film follows a TV actress whose career is cut short when an influenza pandemic sends her back to the small town she fled years before. (wiki)

imdb

1576 – The Secret Garden (2020)

spacetime coordinates: isolated Yorkshire estate, 1947

The Secret Garden is a 2020 British fantasy drama film directed by Marc Munden. The film is based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett and stars Dixie Egerickx, Colin Firth and Julie Walters. Set in 1947 England, the plot follows a young orphan who is sent to live with her uncle, only to discover a magical garden at his estate. (wiki)

imdb